Listen Here: Cracker - "It Aint Gonna Suck Itself"

Cracker is one of the great, modern day American rock bands. Smart, often scathing lyrics, scores of extremely catchy songs and perfectly placed smatterings of light twang mix nicely with David Lowry's wit and view of the world (I'll write more about Cracker in the future). I don't own their entire catalog, but I guess they put out an album called "Countrysides" which I assume is meant to be Cracker's take on country - or at least countryish - songs (frankly, the 2 songs I've heard from it don't sound that much different than Cracker's normal style). And the song "It Ain't Gonna Suck Itself" is really good (and I love that weird keyboard part). Check it out here* (and listen to "Duty Free" while you're at it):



www.myspace.com/countrysidessongscracker



* Cracker has done something very cool with their myspace page. They've created a separate myspace page for each of their albums, and they're easily linked to on their main myspace page. That way you can click around and preview songs off each album to get a feel for that record. God, it seems so obvious. With every band jockeying for the listeners ear these days, I can't believe stuff like this isn't a more common practice.

Video: Lynyrd Fuckin Skynyrd "T for Texas" 1976

Skynyrd, Knebworth Festival 1976

Contrary to what I said in the previous post (below this one), there is some good shit on youtube, such as this Skynyrd gem from Knebworth England, 1976. Super-quality pro-shot video with great audio (though there are some weird segments like when the camera is fixed on the singer who's basically just passing time while one of the guitarist is tearing it up. What the hell?). Hours spent in my basement as a kid listening to One More From the Road LP instilled a strong love for this very rocking song, and the guitar shit on here is fucking top-notch. A great way to spend 9 minutes of your life.

Watching this video lead me to 3 main conclusions:

(1) Skynyrd fucking rules! (already knew that though)

(2) This fact was never more true than in the 70s: Crazy long hair plus wild clothing plus a guitar in your hands can make the ugliest dude look pretty goddamn cool (Man, I just love the bass player with the English police hat on...)

(3) Why is it that to see some good live rock footage we have to go back to footage shot on film in 1976? With all the groundbreaking advances that have been made in both audio and video technologies (with the obvious one being the advent of simple, cheap and easily attainable digital audio and video devices) over the past 25 years you'd think that wouldn't be the case. But it seems the technological advances have just lead to an annoyingly large quantity of horrendous quality audio/video. Doesn't that just seem backwards?

video: Oakley Hall "Volume Rambler"

I've been searching youtube for good live videos from a number of different bands and came up with very little. I've said it before but I'll say it again: I'm amazed at the overall shittiness of the quality of youtube videos. They suck! However, this Oakley Hall video is quite good. It's from the same source and show as the Lazy Susan video I posted previously. Check it out.

www.myspace.com/oakleyhall
www.oakleyhall.net/

Video: Wilco "I'm Always in Love"

I rock. My sweater does not.

You never would've thought it, with Jeff Tweedy's often schlub-like appearance(above), but with the documentary "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" and the bonus DVD that came with Sky Blue Sky(which is really cool), Wilco has proven to be a very camera-friendly band (and I'll add the band's appearance on Saturday Night Live last season where they played an absolutely rocking "Walkin").

There's a lot to like about "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" - the cool black and white footage, the band-gets-dropped-by-record-label story that unfolds, all the stuff shot in the band's loft practice space. And there's some great music as well, one of my favorite of which is shown below, "I'm Always in Love". Tweedy's in full ice cream man regalia, the camera's right in his face, and the band is rocking. And the drummer is just having himself some fun. Check it out.


For the record: I hate when people in the media continue to refer to Wilco as "alt-country." Their first record "AM" was definitelt alt-country, but what they're doing now is in no way alt-country whatsoever. So the moral of the story for all the young bands out there: you never get a second chance to get pigeon-holed into one musical genre. Never.