Re: Terry Allen
From the Fred Eaglesmith mailing list, a serious(?) religious take on Terry Allen's "Salivation": As for me, I'd never let this guy babysit my young'uns. My God, no. Terry Allen is crazier than Guy Clark. I won't even let him talk to my duaghter. -- Joe Gracey President-For-Life, Jackalope Records http://www.kimmierhodes.com
Terry Allen
From the Fred Eaglesmith mailing list, a serious(?) religious take on Terry Allen's "Salivation": I received a CD in my CARE package today that I thought that some of ya'll more irreverant heads might be interested in. Terry Allen - Salivation Sugar Hill Records I might have lived a sheltered life as I'd never heard of this guy before today. Having been raised a God-fearin' Baptist type, he made me a little uncomfortable with his songs. He reminded me of Fred in his style and execution, but some of his themes are damn near blasphemous at times. He's actually kind of unsettling in a way. I actually had to listen to a Gospel CD afterwards so I wouldn't have to worry that 'I should die before I wake.' I know that some people like this edgy / scary / folk stuff. It does what all good art is supposed to do, it'll move you. If you're an agnosticated-type it might even be funny at times. As for me, I'd never let this guy babysit my young'uns. -- Christopher Adams [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Strange Things Happenin' Every Day" - Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Terry Allen, not just the music
I read a lot of interviews...and a lot of Terry Allen interviews...but I
think this is one of the best I've read. It's from rolling stone
online. Make sure you read the part about the brands.
Steve
Southern Discomfort
Renaissance artist Terry Allen's
savage, frothy hymn for the end
of the world
When Terry Allen sings about
Jesus, as he is wont to do, he is
not one to mince words or tiptoe.
He worries little about such petty
distinctions as sacred vs. sacrilege
or piety vs. profanity, unless of
course such conventions can be
twisted around into a complex knot
of wicked wordplay. When the "Big
Boy" comes into an Allen song,
literally anything can happen: He
can save the world, raise hell,
share your beer or even carjack
you with a mischievous twinkle in his flea-market painting baby
blues. It's a stark frankness that simultaneously suggests a
detached but curiously amused agnostic, the Lord's old college
roommate or maybe the devil himself.
Ask Allen to lay his religious convictions on the Mexican restaurant
table before him, however, and he adjusts his shades, cocks his
head slightly to the side and smiles darkly. "I always say that what I
believe in is between me and the midnight hour."
It makes perfect sense, of course, that Allen should prove elusive on
so direct a point; any more clarity would fly directly in the face of
his
enigmatic esthetic. His catalog, reaching back to 1975's Juarez, has
been uniformly eccentric and uncompromising, savage and beautiful,
literate and guttural. His latest outing, Salivation, is a bitterly
ironic,
piano and steel guitar-driven soundtrack to the apocalypse, rife with
bloodshed ("Ain't No Top 40 Song"), heavenly wrath ("The Show,"
"Southern Comfort"), and -- smack dab in the middle -- a loving,
uplifting tribute to his late father ("Red Leg Boy"). Throw in a
nine-minute suite about a tragically heroic pedal steel player ("Billy
the Boy"), and you've got an album that could only be held together
so seamlessly -- and make sense -- on Allen's own terms.
"I wanted it to be fairly relentless," says Allen over a plate of tacos
in Austin. "'Salivation' obviously comes from 'salvation,' and with the
I, me, or you put in it, it becomes a little frothier a word. It seemed
to be a nice kind of parallel for that kind of rabid nature that I was
interested in dealing with in some of these songs." And despite the
many songs tackling Jesus and the end of the world, he points to
the atypically positive "Red Leg Boy" as the album's centerpiece. "I
think that idea of having a sense of who you are, and following that
to whatever conclusion it is, is kind of the salvation in the
salivation."
Though he was born in Kansas and now resides in Santa Fe, N.M.,
Allen was raised in West Texas and is regarded as a central figure in
the "Lubbock Mafia," a close-knit family of idiosyncratic musicians
that includes Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. When
the "atomic bomb of rock roll" hit sleepy Lubbock in the mid-Fifties,
Allen had a rare in: his father, a retired baseball player who was
near sixty at the time of Allen's birth, turned an old gospel church
into a dance hall and brought in touring rock acts of the day like
Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley.
"It was a time of record burnings, but ironically, my dad didn't get
much heat for bringing in these bands, because he was a sports
hero, he was a local boy, and people just somehow let that slide
by," Allen laughs. "It was the devil that was causing this, not my
dad."
Although music would remain an important facet of his life, it has
never been Allen's sole pursuit. An accomplished visual artist, Allen's
latest creation is a 3,600 square foot installation in the Houston
airport, scheduled for completion this May. "It's right in the center of
a terminal under a big dome," explains Allen. "The floor's like a
skewed map of the world, and Houston's the center of the world
with all of the continents aimed at it. And rising right out of the
center of Houston is this thirty-foot oak tree that I had cast in
bronze, and over each continent there's a speaker that's going to
play an instrument indigenous to that part of the world." The music
for the project, titled "Countree," was written and recorded by Allen
with friends Joe Ely and David Byrne.
Next up for Allen? Customized cattle brands. "I've got one that just
has the word 'irony,'" he beams. "And I've got another one that's,
'All artists trying to be God will burn in hell.' It's kind of a spiral
brand. And I've been thinking of doing one that's K2Y Jelly, or
something like that. Eventually, I want to have a whole bank of
them, and do a show with them. Kind of like, 'Have brand, will
travel.' For a flat fee I'll come and brand your wall or I'll brand your
car or I'll bran
pearls (was Kinky / Terry Allen)
Junior wrote: np: Lyle Lovett "Sold American" (from Pearls in the Snow) uh, what is Pearls in the Snow? (nice title when you stop to think about it). carl w.
Re: pearls (was Kinky / Terry Allen)
Carl! Pearls in the Snow is the Kinky Friedman tribute album that came out in December. It's pretty darn good, actually, both in itself and as an intro to Kinky's material. Check this out: Willie, Ride 'em Jewboy Delbert McClinton, Autograph Lee Roy Parnell, Nville Casualty and Life Asleep a t Wheel, Before All Hell Breaks Loose Geezinslaws, Twirl Dwight, Rapid City South Dakota Guy Clark, Wild Man from Borneo Mary Stuart, Lady Yesterday Tompall Glaser, Get Yer Biscuits in the Oven Chuck E. Weiss and the Goddamn Liars, Ol' Ben Lucas Kinky himself, Marilyn and Joe (RIP Joe!...) Billy Swan, When the Lord Closes the Door Lyle Lovett, Sold American Texas Jewboys, Medley Texas Jewboys, Silver Eagle Express Tom Waits, Hiway Cafe Kinky and Little Jewford, Thank You Kinky --jr.
Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Terry A. Smith wrote: 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." Well, anyone who covers the Stooges probably isn't too "overly polite."g I was referring more to the likes of Bruton and McMurtry. 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. Even though they contain a few good songs, those are probably two of his weaker records. Try Lubbock (On Everything) for prime Allen, or more recently Human Remains and Salivation.--don (gettin' ready for another round of on-air begging. Ugh.)
Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
Excerpts from internet.listserv.postcard2: 13-Mar-99 Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Al.. by Don [EMAIL PROTECTED] Well, anyone who covers the Stooges probably isn't too "overly polite."g I was referring more to the likes of Bruton and McMurtry. Can someone who covers Kinky Friedman (McMurtry) be accused of being "overly polite"? Carl Z.
Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
On Sat, 13 Mar 1999, Carl Abraham Zimring wrote: Can someone who covers Kinky Friedman (McMurtry) be accused of being "overly polite"? Sure, if he smooths 'em out like McMurtry does.--don
Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
At 5:36 PM -0800 on 3/12/99, Don Yates wrote: 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 make some folks uneasy, and others even downright mad. Titled Salivation, the album takes dead-aim at religion, skewering its hypocrisies with irony and irreverence while also demonstrating that Allen's lost none of his ability to tell a powerful tale. Terry Allen doesn't make background music, and thank god for that.--don I dunno, Don, juxtaposing Allen and McMurtry like this doesn't work for me. I haven't listened to the new Allen at all, not being a weasel g, and I've listened to the new McMurtry just once, yesterday in fact, and as background music, so there. Seriously, just as Allen's work is not all prime -- I think more highly of the two albums on the Sugar Hill twofer than I do of "Rollback," for example -- you can't point to a weaker McMurtry album and say, "Well, the guy's no Terry Allen." "Too Long in the Wasteland" is as strong now as it was then. I'd say that, allowing for Allen's decade-long head start, they've got about the same track record. To belabor the obvious just in case, I'm not saying McMurtry's as strong as Allen. I've traveled hundreds of miles to see Terry Allen; I catch McMurtry about half the chances I get. But I sure don't lump McMurtry in with background music or roots music for people without roots (which his first release addressed kind of critically, after all). Bob
Kinky / Terry Allen / was Alejandro
Bob: Well, here too: The only time I've ever seen Friedman, he literally spent the evening belching on stage and then told us at the end how lucky he was to be going to New York, where he'd play to an audience that appreciated him. (Doubters are welcome to go to the Boston Globe archives at www.boston.com and search on Friedman and belch.) Anyone who "smooths out" that crass piece of shit is OK by me. Yeah, even though I like Kinky (his recordings? g), it's a fact he's really self-indulgent in live appearances and may do just about any damn thing. Kind of the Charles Bukowski of free range country?? I've seen him do the belch thing too. These days, Kinky usually just runs through ok acoustic versions of his songs in conjunction with book readings or book signings. I mean, he no longer has a band or does honest-to-god music gigs or anything. I'll be checking him out at SXSW and hoping for the best. I won't stand too close, however g. Junior, np: Lyle Lovett "Sold American" (from Pearls in the Snow)
Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
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 make some folks uneasy, and others even downright mad. Titled Salivation, the album takes dead-aim at religion, skewering its hypocrisies with irony and irreverence while also demonstrating that Allen's lost none of his ability to tell a powerful tale. Terry Allen doesn't make background music, and thank god for that.--don
Re: Terry Allen (was Re: Alejandro (was: need info)
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
Re: Terry Allen, Salivation and SXSW
Steve Gardner wrote: Gatemouth Brown (we are putting out a reissue from him this month) This wouldn't be the nearly-impossible-to-find "Bogaloosa Boogie Man" would it? (he asked hopefully)
