Of Chris’ many wanderings and meandering through life, no turn has surprised me more than his (recent) emergence as a fan of the most miserable Georgia Bulldogs.  Allow me to explain.  Chris and I grew up in a wretched little town in North Florida and attended an even more wretched high school, about which Chris has blogged of late.  Academics were of almost no import at said institution, and of the graduating class of over 400 (more than 600 were in our sophomore class), less than 20 (perhaps less than fifteen) went on to a four-year college or university right away.  Only two or three went out of state, one being Chris, but he did not initially go to UGA.  College was simply not expected, and no guidance was given, the counselors more concerned with stemming the massive drop-out rate.  I ended up at the University of Florida because it was close by and I really had no idea that there were other options.  (Now this was a good thing, as in all seriousness, UF is by far the best public university until you hit UNC to the north and UT to the west.  I could whip out all kinds of stats to demonstrate this, but I won’t bore you).  The point is that I did not choose UF (and I will leave it to A Free Man to tell how he ended up at what he, with a wink, calls the finest educational institution in the South), and I certainly did not go there because of UF football, although I was already a fan of sorts, as were about 1/3 of the town.

What I can assure you is that Chris was not a fan of the Dogs in high school, although about 1/3 of the high school population were, the other 1/3 being Florida State U. fans (with a sprinkling of mutant Miami fans thrown in).  In a town and high school with so little connections to higher learning, how did people choose their team?  Well, I did have some relatives that went to UF (and also FSU), but I think it was probably pretty random why one choose to root for UF or FSU.  However, it was not random if you chose to wear the red and the black (in complete ignorance of those colors’ historic and political significance).  You chose UGA to proclaim you were the biggest, dumbest, most profane redneck of them all.   You picked an out-of-state school, much further away, precisely because no one you knew had ever gone to school there, in fact, it had no connection to school what so ever.  You just thought it marked you as a bad ass, and its relation to the Deep South (more so than any Florida school) bore all the unfortunate racial connotations you might expect.  So imagine my surprise years later when my friend started blathering about the glories of going “between the hedges” (which must also be slang for some bizarre sexual practice).

I would be curious to know when Chris actually became a fan of the Dogs and how many games he actually attended, because it did not really seem his style while he was living in the, I admit, most pleasant town of Athens.  I suspect, like myself, he became a true fan years later after having left Athens.  My first year at UF I went to all the games like any other stupid newbie, but a trip to Mexico and the lefty political types I hung around with soon convinced me that football was for the brain-dead, plastic-fantastic mainstream.  I started scalping my tickets after that (I was also desperately poor, so that made it easier).  And while I was more likely to find myself being asked to leave a political rally by a smartly dressed law enforcement agent (I like to imagine it was Secret Service) for yelling to Dan Quayle “Can you spell “cat”?” than attend a football game, I still went to a game or so a year for old time’s sake.  But I was no longer a fan, even the indifferent one I had been in high school.  I became a true fan again only after I had moved away, and as a Florida boy, was freezing my ass off experiencing winter for the first time in Pittsburgh and wondering why people thought I talked funny.  It took a few years, and by then I was way too lefty and, I imagined, hip to publicly admit I cared about football. But I did; it gave me a connection to home, and to my surprise I found myself depressed after a UF loss (next year!) and elated after a victory.  So I should forgive my friend for his apostasy, I suppose, as the heart of the college football fan is a strange and unmapped territory.

Okay, I know this is supposed to be smack talk so forgive the digression above, and let’s get to it.  Umm, let’s see….GEORGIA SUX…no, no, I can do better, just give me a second…

On the first day of the eleventh month of the two thousand and eighth year in the Faulknerian fever swamp of Jacksonville, two forces will meet, one representing good and the other the most foul and pestilential evil.  Our beloved Gators will come for vengeance.  The force of arms shall be our only ornament-our only rest, the fight.  Upon entering the arena, as Urban Meyer brings forth the machine he has constructed of the blood and sinew of mere mortals, he will turn to the assembled Bulldogs, shaking but perhaps still confident in their arrogance, and proclaim: “Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair.”

And then we shall see the Evil Creature known as Uga gathering his forces and armies to fight against the wise Urban Meyer and his army. And the Evil Creature will be captured, and with him the False Prophet, Mark Richt, who could do mighty miracles when the Evil Creature is present—miracles that deceive all who have accepted the Evil Creature’s mark [G], and who worship his flea-infested, mange-ridden carcass.  Both of them—the Evil Creature and his False Prophet—will be thrown alive into the Lake of Fire that burns with sulfur [also known as losing by three touchdowns].  And their entire army shall be killed with the sharp sword of Tim Tebow and all the Gators of the heavens will gorge on the flesh of the dog.

And when the battle is complete and the tableau is one of the dogs’ utter ruin, the Gators will leave the field triumphant, the pride of having vanquished a scurrilous foe their only reward, with none of the pathetic parading the dogs embarrassed themselves with last year.  The dogs will lay on the field destroyed, defeated, and in despair, weeping at their own futile efforts and gross inadequacies—the only sound the groans and cries of the beaten dogs and the lamentations of their women.  And they will finally know their place and bow their heads before their betters.

———————-

Well, Jamie’s certainly raised the bar for Deep South Smack Talk – Courtney, Angel you’re going to have to take it up a notch. Your underwhelming apostate is currently constructing his defense of the Georgia Bulldog Nation and, apparently, his place in it. 

———————

I can’t think of a more appropriate artist to accompany this post than Hank Williams III. The son of Bocephus and the grandson of the godfather of country music, Hank III has a new album, “Damn Right Rebel Proud”, out on Curb Records. It’s a pure, old-school country stomp with a bit of punk ethic thrown in to differentiate it from your Grandaddy’s country music. Hank III is blogger friendly, so if you like what you hear, support him by buying his new album.

I remember talking alt-country one night with a slightly older friend who took great pleasure in lecturing me about Uncle Tupelo not being the first band to mix punk and country. John Doe and Exene Cervenka did it while Tweedy and Farrar were still playing with Tonka trucks – was roughly how this diatrabe went. This is probably true, but they were doing it while I was playing with Tonka trucks as well, and I’ve never been able to really get into X.

So when Boston’s Sarah Borges breaks out in “Come Back to Me” from X’s “Under the Big Black Sun” on her recent record she’s making a statement – “I’m a little bit country, but I’ve got solid punk rock creds.” The thing is, this posturing isn’t necessary because, whether or not they’re “a little bit punk” Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles have made a proper good country record. In this era of saccharine radio country that is something of which to be damn proud. Not bad for a Yankee girl.

What Borges and her crew are doing is making old-school country music – the kind of music that came out of Nashville before things went horribly wrong in the 80’s. It’s her band , The Broken Singles, that makes the first impression on her “Diamonds in the Dark” sophomore LP – they’re solid and polished rollicking in with a classic country riff. But when Borges comes in they don’t overshadow her clear and brassy vocals.

Borges and the band are at their best on tracks like “False Eyelashes” as they lay down that old style country that is so notably absent from today’s C&W radio. They honk and tonk with the best of them on cuts like “Open Up Your Back Door” and when she unleashes her Broken Singles to jam “Diamonds in the Dark” is at its strongest. Mike Castellana is just masterful when he sits down at the pedal steel – go baldies! The only time “Diamonds in the Dark” pales is when they slow things down a little. That’s not to say that the softer ballads fall flat, they just aren’t as compelling as the up tempo numbers.

Borges gets compared to Lucinda Williams in a few reviews but I think a more apt comparison is to Ottawa’s Kathleen Edwards. Borges is a stronger singer than the Canadian, but they share the same slightly bend lyrical sensibility that plants them firmly in the “alt” camp.

Check out “Open Up The Backdoor” and if you enjoy it Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles’ “Diamonds in the Dark” is out on Sugar Hill and available from and Amazon.

MP3: Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles – “Open Up The Backdoor”

MP3: k.d. lang – “I Dream of Spring”

London’s Blah Blah Blah firmly occupy a strange patch of musical turf somewhere in between Blur and Goldie Lookin’ Chain. Check out the oddly charming “Hopeless & Lazy”. Blah Blah Blah are on a UK tour and I bet they would be worth checking out live.

MP3: Blah Blah Blah – “Hopeless & Lazy”

I loved Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins “Rabbit Fur Coat” so much that I was thrilled to see that the Twins have a solo, er duo, record coming out soon. “Fire Songs” is due in June on Vanguard and, if this Cure cover is a good sample, will be a must.

MP3: The Watson Twins – “Just Like Heaven”

Brooklyn’s MGMT get the Best Lyrics of the Week award for…

“I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars…”

…and Worst Website of the Week for this. “Time to Pretend” is off their debut “Oracular Spectacular”; it is synth heavy but fantastic.

MP3: MGMT – “Time to Pretend”

I’m really into lush folk-tinged indie music right now and Portland’s Loch Lomond really fit the bill. Their latest, “Paper the Walls” is out on CD or for download.

MP3: Loch Lomond – “A Field Report”

Frightened Rabbit is a Scottish quartet formed in 2004 by brothers Scott and Grant Hutchinson. “The Modern Leper” is from the forthcoming sophomore LP “Sing The Greys. “The Modern Leper” has got a building, driving tempo that makes it feel urgent – great vocals as well.

MP3: Frightened Rabbit – “The Modern Leper”

Nick Lowe has reissued his 1978 LP “Jesus of Cool”. It’s a record I’m not at all familiar with from an artist that, beyond “Cruel to be Kind” I’m not terribly familiar with. I hear bits of Jackson Brown, Brian Wilson and The Who in “So It Goes”. New to me – but great stuff.

MP3: Nick Lowe – “So It Goes”

Voice of the Seven Woods is Mancunian instrumentalist Rick Tomlinson. “Return from Byzantium”, which is featured on his new self-titled record, has a bit of a Western feel to it – reminiscent of Calexico. The new album is out and available from Twisted Nerve.

MP3: Voice of the Seven Woods – “Return from Byzantium”

More folk-tinged pop from These United States whose debut “The Three of Us at the Gates of Eden” was released earlier this month. The DC outfit’s “First Sight” is undeniably catchy.

MP3: These United States – “First Sight”

Number ten is a grower. Strangers Die Everyday, also out of Portland, is a strange post-rock instrumental act. Their debut full length ‘Aperture For Departure’ came out earlier this month on This Generation Tapes. One of the tracks off that LP, “Bicycle” really got into my head this week all the more upon repeated listens. It’s a slightly odd fusing of a string quartet with a rock band’s rhythm section, but I don’t think you hear enough music these days with a cello.

MP3: Strangers Die Everyday – “Bicycle”

“I hear the train a comin’
It’s rollin’ ’round the bend,
And I ain’t seen the sunshine,
Since, I don’t know when,
I’m stuck in Folsom Prison,
And time keeps draggin’ on…”

The other day we were playing the baby Johnny Cash – the Sun Records version of “I Walk the Line”, in his/her continuing pre-natal musical education, and he or she went crazy, started kicking like Michael Flatley. We’ve interpreted this response as the baby enjoying the music – we’re glass half full kind of people. Now I found this kind of odd, I mean what’s in Johnny Cash for an unborn baby, where are the bits for him/her to relate to? Sometimes I think about things too much, but it got my memory working.

Some of the first music I remember hearing when I was a kid was Johnny Cash. When we first moved to Florida, my dad had a big green Mercury Marquis with an 8-track cassette player and was a big fan of Cash’s “Folsom/San Quentin” live album. I can remember driving in that car with the windows down (no A/C) in the Florida summer just melting into the vinyl seats, with my Dad singing the chorus:

“When I was just a baby, my mama told me, ‘Son,
Always be a good boy; don’t ever play with guns.’ But I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.
When I hear that whistle blowin’ I hang my head and cry… ”

That’s the only verse he ever sung. I’m convinced to this day that my Dad knows only one verse to about a hundred songs.

Johnny Cash was the original rebel. He played country and gospel when Sun wanted rock n’ roll. He did live albums in prison when his record company thought that was career suicide. He made mistakes but he got his life and career together when he needed to. There’s something pure and simple about Cash’s music. There’s no bluster and attitude. He was never a great guitarist, but the sound that comes through on his early recordings is something that had never been heard before. Listen to those Sun recordings of Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two – just Cash, Luther Perkins and Marshall Grant. The music just plunges forward, it’s like a steam train chugging ahead, not necessarily beautiful, but damn compelling.

Cash fell out of favor with the public in the 80’s. So much so that he played a concert at the community college gymnasium in the small Florida town where I grew up. My Dad and I went to see it. Unfortunately I don’t remember much of the concert, but I do remember getting ill midway through and having to leave early. Wasn’t the last time I would get sick at a concert, but the only time that it wasn’t self induced.

Cash’s resurgence came in collaboration with the producer Rick Rubin, known mostly for producing rap albums. When “American” came out in 1994, I was living in Seattle and trying to live a lifestyle with little room in it for anything from my past. But I couldn’t deny the power of this record, just Cash and his guitar. His voice sounded different, weaker but in a way richer. And songs like the cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Bird on a Wire” brought a ton of emotion that I could have done without in a kind of fragile emotional state.

Cash and Rubin released four of these records and one posthumously. I think the best is “American IV: The Man Comes Around”. I saw the video for “Hurt” before hearing the album and was awestruck. It’s an amazing testament to Cash and the footage of him, in very advanced age recovering from his own illness and the death of his wife is shocking. The album itself is amazing and unlike the other American series, the Cash originals on this album are the best tracks. Particularly the title track and “Give My Love to Rose”. The latter was originally recorded in 1959, but it’s the version on this album, when Cash sings:

“I found him by the railroad track this morning
I could see that he was nearly dead
I knelt down beside him and I listened
Just to hear the words the dying fellow said…”

You can tell you’re listening to a man that has a grip on his own mortality.

So, pardon, the riff. This was meant to be about why our baby might like Johnny Cash. And I don’t know, but I have a couple of ideas. Maybe it’s because you can’t not like Johnny Cash. I know people who hate country music, but still own a Cash album or two. He’s like Elvis or the Beatles, essential to modern music as we know it. And the honesty and simplicity of his music is impossible to dislike.

Or maybe its for the reason that I liked it when I was a kid. Maybe Baby DVD likes Johnny Cash because his or her Dad does. I like that answer, but then, I am a half glass full kind of guy.

MP3: Johnny Cash – “Folsom Prison Blues” (Live)
MP3: Johnny Cash – “Give My Love to Rose”