>
>
> And here's an interesting contrast to the overly polite and artsy "roots
> rock" types: Terry Allen's an arty Texas singer-songwriter who also just
> happens to be thoroughly immersed in various roots styles. He does more
> than just name-check roots music greats in his publicity sheets (a la
> Bruton) -- his music is identifiably based in country, cajun, tex-mex,
> etc. There's also an edginess to his sound that's noticeably absent from
> that of the polite snooze-rock guys. His new album's definitely gonna
> music, and thank god for that.--don
>
I think don may be feeling a little better.
Anyhow, I'm wondering if "edginess," as described in Allen's case, stems
from him attacking outside targets, such as religion. Edginess can just as
easily come from looking inside, and I think Alejandro's done a good job
of that throughout his career. Yeah, I know this is songwriting analysis
101, but I just cringe to hear AE thrown in with the pejorative
"snooze-rock guys" phrase. Or "overly polite and artsy." I picked up Terry
Allen's re-released double record -- two of his earlier records combined
as a double CD -- a couple years ago, and was bored to tears. The
songwriting was right there, but the tunes were, um, damned slow. This is
music we're talking about, not poetry. Not even beat poetry. Pick up the
tempo, Terry. -- Terry
