Jump to content

Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers): Flagpole Cover Story

Jahfin

By Jahfin
in Other Bands / Music

Recommended Posts

Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Y'ALL:

It's the eve of destruction (self destructive zone) appetite for

destruction, kiss destroyer...

Let's just say I'm packing, loaded and ready for a big tour of Rock.

Proud to announce that VINYL is here!

Well mostly, as there's still no word on release date of BRIGHTER THAN

CREATION'S DARK's impending vinyl release.

GANGSTABILLY, PIZZA DELIVERANCE, DECORATION DAY, THE DIRTY SOUTH and BLESSING AND A CURSE have all become officially released on vinyl for first time in USA. Certainly a long time in coming milestone for me, as

I don't even count them until they're out properly on 180gm. vinyl

(most with gate-fold sleeves for proper separation, art work as big as

a Montana sky, and that sound, oh that sound).

As you know SOUTHERN ROCK OPERA has been out on vinyl for some time

but other than a small run of British vinyl a few years back, this

marks the first time for most of our titles.

As for BRIGHTER THAN CREATION'S DARK on vinyl, we're as anxious as

anyone and will gladly keep you posted as soon as we know anything at

all. In the planning stages of this vinyl release, I was adamant about

the vinyl release including a way to download to mp3, free with

purchase. I hear I even went so far as to say that if they couldn't do

that, not to bother, so in other words, I'm afraid it's MY FAULT!

Sorry, i sure didn't mean to let my concern for providing a great deal

for our fine friends who buy from us stand in the way of progress, but

hopefully all of this will be worked out very soon and everyone can

enjoy our new album the way it was intended to sound.

Look for vinyl BRIGHTER THAN CREATION'S DARK as a two record set with

mp3 for the iPod, and beautiful gate fold package sometime SOON.

TOUR BEGINS next monday in Anaheim CA at The House of Blues on

Feb. 11 and LA at The Avalon on Feb. 12.

From there we will venture north and across the fine country and onward

through march and beyond.

Stay tuned for more tour dates to be announced soon as well as hopefully a TV appearance.

Lots more to talk about and announce on the near horizon, but I'll save

that for then and leave this where it is for now.

See You at the Rock Show,

Patterson

Link to comment
Share on other sites
danelectro

danelectro

Posted
Posted

I've heard bad stuff about New West before so it didn't surprise me DBT had issues with them.

I didn't see a thread about the new album so I'll chime in here. I'm not all that into it. I've pretty much loved everything DBT has done and I'm a long time fan but this album doesn't get me excited. I don't think it's a bad album but I do think the formula is starting to get a bit stale, specifically Patterson's style. He seems content to rewrite songs in the vein of Heathens and Lookout Mountain over and over, it was cool at first but it's starting to sound less like a style and more like repetition and lack of ideas. I really don't think the album suffers from Isbell's loss either. One thing that I noticed right from the start is the guitar tones are somewhat anemic compared to the huge sound they had on The Dirty South, the album doesn't do a good job in capturing the usual power of the band. The vibe of the album is noticably subdued so that may be part of it and honestly I always like the twangier side of the band more but still something seems to be missing. I do think there are some great songs on it, Cooley always turns in a good performance and some of his stuff sounds right out of Grevous Angel era GP songbook.

It may just be me outgrowing the band but I've never jumped ship on a band before, not one that I've really liked anyway and DBT was "my band" for a long time. I'll see how I feel after I catch their show when they come through town later in the month but I'm already starting to regret I bought tix, I actually left before the encore last time I saw them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I've only listened to it a couple of times but it's already growing on me more than I ever expected. As usual, the true test of the new tunes will be hearing them live. No dates for my part of NC yet but hopefully those will be announced along with the next leg of the tour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Juliet

Juliet

Posted
Posted

Hi:

I'm glad you found the article that I saw this a.m. I thought it was in Recently Reviewed but I was in a hurry this a.m. so I obviously misread the links...

I hope ya like the write-up..

I see the band won't be in London...maybe next time...

J

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks for the head's up.

The Truckers aren't going to be making it overseas anytime soon but it looks like former bandmate Jason Isbell is:

http://jasonisbell.com/tour.html

EUROPE 2008

28/03/2008: Dolans, Limerick (Ireland)

29/03/2008: Cyprus Avenue, Cork (Ireland)

30/03/2008: Roisin Dubh, Galway (Ireland)

01/04/2008: Whelans, Dublin (Ireland)

03/04/2008: King Tuts, Glasgow (Scotland)

04/04/2008: The Cluny, Newcastle (England)

05/04/2008: Rescue Rooms, Nottingham (England)

06/04/2008: The Shed, Bedford (England)

07/04/2008: The Borderline, London (England)

08/04/2008: St Bonaventure, Bristol (England)

17/04/2008: W2, Den Bosch (Netherlands)

18/04/2008: Trix, Antwerp (Belgium)

19/04/2008: Blue Highway Festival, Utrecht (Netherlands)

20/04/2008: Lantaarn, Hellendoorn (Netherlands)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Swede

Swede

Posted
Posted

I have just purchased the new DBT album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark.

My first impression of it, after one listen, is that I think they have improved. Damn, It's a lot better than A Blessing And A Curse, which is my least favorite since A Southern Rock Opera. I think this album will grow on me, and I wouldn't be suprised if it'll be one of my favorite DBT albums in a couple of listens.

Not only is the songs great compositions, the performance is excellent as well. Love the stuff new guitarist John Neff is doing with the songs, his pedal steel is more than welcome, and of course, it's great that Shonna's stepping forward as a singer and songwriter and she does it very good. I've also have to mention her harmonies that she lays down with Patterson, it's fucking brilliant!!! What a team!

Spooner on hammond and wurlitzer does a lot to the sound as well. With this new direction I can't say I miss Jason Isbell one bit. The future is promising and it's the least I can say!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted
I have just purchased the new DBT album, Brighter Than Creation's Dark.

My first impression of it, after one listen, is that I think they have improved. Damn, It's a lot better than A Blessing And A Curse, which is my least favorite since A Southern Rock Opera. I think this album will grow on me, and I wouldn't be suprised if it'll be one of my favorite DBT albums in a couple of listens.

Not only is the songs great compositions, the performance is excellent as well. Love the stuff new guitarist John Neff is doing with the songs, his pedal steel is more than welcome, and of course, it's great that Shonna's stepping forward as a singer and songwriter and she does it very good. I've also have to mention her harmonies that she lays down with Patterson, it's fucking brilliant!!! What a team!

Spooner on hammond and wurlitzer does a lot to the sound as well. With this new direction I can't say I miss Jason Isbell one bit. The future is promising and it's the least I can say!

Glad to hear you like it, it's still growing on me as well. And just to clarify (and you may already know this) but John "Sho' Nuff" Neff has played pedal steel on every DBTs album since the beginning. He also toured with them back in the early days but due to the poor acoustics of the smalll clubs and other factors (like playing in at least a dozen other Athens area bands), he had to drop out for a few years. Glad to see him back touring with the DBT and making even more contributions to their records (on both pedal steel and guitar).

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

http://www.pastemagazine.com/action/articl...smell_the_glove

6505_image_1.jpg

SMELL THE GLOVE

Writer: Patterson Hood

Two things we can all agree on:

1. We all love Michael Jackson

2. We’re all glad he’s not our uncle.

I was 18 and working at a record store in Florence, Ala., in the fall of 1982 when Thriller was released. At the time, it was considered the inferior follow-up to his 1979 solo breakthrough Off The Wall. It had that weak McCartney collaboration as a first single. Then again, it also had “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” although neither of those had become ubiquitous by then. The elements were all there, but he hadn’t quite moonwalked into our collective consciousness yet. The Vincent Price thing seemed like a campy diversion, and “Human Nature” sounded like fucking Toto. Oh wait, it was fucking Toto.

Then the shit hit the fan and nothing has been the same since. Thriller was the Star Wars of the music industry—it created a monster that’s hard to separate from the original work. Its artistic merits will always be weighed against the seismic cultural waves it unleashed.

For the record, I consider “Billie Jean” one of the definitive singles of the entire Rock Era and a piece of pop songwriting at its best. I never really embraced the album, though. Preparing to write this piece, I went to the shelf and pulled out Off The Wall instead, and I’m really enjoying listening to it as I write. It’s an undeniably great work of pop and—post-Jackson 5—it stands as Michael’s finest hour.

Patterson Hood is the co-founder of the Drive-By Truckers. Their latest release is entiteld "Brighter Than Creation's Dark."

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Swede

Swede

Posted
Posted

^ Well, I have to admit I totally forgot that he played pedal steel on the other records, though I am aware there are pedal steel on them :D

But it's a lot more of him on this album then anyone of the "Isbell-era" records I think..

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted
^ Well, I have to admit I totally forgot that he played pedal steel on the other records, though I am aware there are pedal steel on them :D

But it's a lot more of him on this album then anyone of the "Isbell-era" records I think..

Yes, there is and with all due respect to Jason, that's a good thing. I do love me the sound of a sweet pedal steel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Drive-By Truckers are back on

the road again and brought one of the most deeply probing and

incendiary live rock shows out there to the Avalon in Hollywood on

Tuesday night.

The Georgia-based band just released its eighth album, "Brighter Than

Creation's Dark" (New West), and a good part of the 105-minute

performance featured the new material, though the group worked in

crowd favorites from various past releases.

Initially, the set was slow-burn, leading off with the melancholy

"Wife Beater," dating back to their 1998 debut "Gangstabilly."

Bandleader-guitarists Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley traded off lead

vocal spots on songs with bassist Shonna Tucker, who's holding her own

as a singer-songwriter in the wake of Jason Isbell's departure for

solo pastures.

With founding member John Neff now returning to the fold on squealing

pedal steel and a third biting electric guitar and music legend

Spooner Oldham (of Muscle Shoals studio fame, like Hood's father

David) on keyboards, the group was lyrical and fierce, unleashing

tales of America fueled by fret firepower.

The band truly began to blaze with a reworked "Puttin' People on the

Moon," the tribal tom-toms of drummer Brad Morgan driving a harrowing

look at small-town unemployment struggles, a wife's cancer and one

lyric changed from "Reagan in the White House" to Bush. That's what

the Truckers are all about: real songs about real people that the

current for-the-rich-only administration has ignored as those lives go

further down the social toilet.

Where Hood often is the band's storyteller-poet and balladeer, Cooley

has a rocker's heart, cutting loose for songs that included the

swaggering "Marry Me" and spun some tales himself, like the saloon

country of the new "Self-Destructive Zone."

There was the off-center profile of "Bob," who never married but isn't

"light in the loafers" and takes care of his mama; a wired version of

"Sinkhole" from 2003's "Decoration Day"; and the epic "Lookout

Mountain" off 2004's "The Dirty South."

While the touchstones could be spotted -- lots of Neil Young and Crazy

Horse-styled din-and-grind and Stonesy rockin' -- ultimately it's

still a sound that's all the Truckers' own, both rich and raggedly

powerful. Tipping their hat to another inspiration, the band returned

for an encore of "Buttholeville," from their debut, shifting into a

blistering version of Bruce Springsteen's paranoia-drenched "State

Trooper."

In a world of real justice, the Drive-By Truckers would at least be

headlining a Gibson Amphitheatre-size venue. But calculated pandering

rules the mainstream, and this brilliant rough-'n'-tumble outfit

bravely travels the alternate highways as perhaps the best rock band

in America right now.

The bill also featured the Truckers' longtime buds North Mississippi

Allstars and the Felice Brothers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Looking Bright For The Truckers

drive_by_truckers_02l.gif

"I kind of like the way a song sounds when everyone's struggling to learn it more than the take when it's all polished. Sometimes there's more raw inspiration in those early takes."

--Patterson Hood

Jeff Vrabel, Savannah, Ga.

First things first: the Drive-By Truckers' seventh record, "Brighter Than Creation's Dark," which came out in January via New West, is extremely long. Nineteen tracks long. Can't-burn-two-seconds-more-on-the-CD long. Long enough that Patterson Hood says it would have probably been a double album if the record company had been remotely OK with it. "It seems like it's telling a story," said Hood, "It's really not. It's more like it's implying one."

Read the rest of the article here:

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/feature/art...t_id=1003710278

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Drive-By Truckers carry the torch for rock and roll

780-0208_scene_dbt.embedded.prod_affiliate.36.jpg

BY MICHAEL DEEDS - mdeeds@idahostatesman.com

Despite the fact that the Drive-By Truckers were touring in support of their ambitious double-album "Southern Rock Opera," the band's career hadn't shifted into high gear when they last rocked Boise in 2002. The Athens, Ga.-based group - founded in 1996 by longtime musical partners Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley - performed as an opening act at Neurolux.

More than six years later, the Drive-By Truckers are hailed as the greatest Southern-rock act of the 21st century. In what promises to be a Boise concert highlight of 2008, the Truckers will headline at The Big Easy on Tuesday night.

Read the remainder of the article here:

http://www.idahostatesman.com/276/story/296178.html

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Jahfin

Jahfin

Posted
  • Author
Posted

From the ninebullets.org board:

Hey guys,

I just found out about this and was asked to pass the info along.

The DBT documentary, "The Secret to a Happy Ending" is going to have it's World Premiere in Florence, Alabama on Friday, April 18th. It's part of Alabama Studio Weekend. You can find out more about other events here:

http://www.alabamastudio.org

Details about the film screening below....

8:00 - 10 pm The Shoals Theater

The world premiere screening of "The Secret to a Happy Ending", a documentary film by Barr Weissman about The Drive-by Truckers. Nearly 4 years in the making, the film features interviews and musical performances, as well as in studio, road and at home footage.

Corner of Mobile and Seminary Streets in Florence

Open to the Public

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Go to topic listing

LEDZEPPELIN.com

Site Navigation

  • LedZeppelin.com Home
  • News
  • Discography
  • Merchandise
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy

    • Led Zeppelin Timeline

  • Concert Timeline / Database
  • Events
  • Photos
  • Video
    • ×
    ×
    • Create New...