  |
|||||||||
 
|
 |
||||||||
|
Blazing saddles:
By Kenneth Johnson, Staff Writer Copyright 1996 Charlotte Observer
This time around, cow-punk pioneers Jason and the Scorchers' timing couldn't be better. Just as country-infused rock - a style the band almost single-handedly kept alive in the '80s - is enjoying a renaissance, singer Jason Ringenberg and the Scorchers, who appear tonight at Tremont Music Hall, are about to release what some say is the band's best album yet, "Clear Impetuous Morning". "Did you pick up USA Today and see what good albums are out there?" an excited Ringenberg asked over the phone from his Nashville home Wednesday. A quick check found a rave review of the new release, the band's second CD since reuniting in 1995. "The timing is perfect...," he agreed. "Everybody's pointing to us as pioneers of modern country-rock, and we're coming back with maybe our strongest record ever". "Clear Impetuous Morning" (Mammoth/Atlantic) is loaded with the Scorchers' trademark punk-rockin' take on honky-tonk ("2+1=Nothing", "Tomorrow Has Come Today"), the same kind of super-charged stuff the influential group first hoisted onto fans in 1981. There's even a lovely duet with Emmylou Harris ("Everything Has a Cost"). "I think all the cylinders were hittin' on this record", Ringenberg said. "We felt like we could make a career kind of record again. We felt we could do another record like 'Lost and Found' or 'Fervor'. I don't think we've made a record like that in a long time, and we wanted to. And I think we succeeded". The band, which also includes guitarist Warner Hodges, bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer Perry Baggs, recorded its demos for the CD in a makeshift studio housed in the back of an Atlanta vintage amplifier repair shop. "We had such a good time and it sounded so good and it was so outrageously cheap, we said, 'We'll just do the record here'," Ringenberg said. "We had all kinds of time because it was so cheap. We could get six weeks of time for what a week in Nashville would've cost". The album includes a version of the Gram Parsons-Roger McGuinn song, "Drugstore Truck Drivin' Man" that continues the Scorchers' tradition of cool cover tunes. "As far as that song specifically, it's one that's real close to our hearts. It's an anti-Nashville-music-business song and we've been there and done that, so we understood where the sentiments of the song were coming from. And we just wanted to do a Gram Parsons song, he was the pioneer of country-rock. It was a logical choice". Flame throwers:
© 1996-2001 Charlotte Observer — All Rights Reserved |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|