Chuck Thompson - Country Guitars
Part 1
N: What if Country is just Mundane Metal?
B: Is that you Narzon? What are you, like the ghost in my Christmas presents?
N: I just mean, well, you're big into sarcasm, so what if it is? What was it last night? Things are Gonna Change Around Here? What if he's doing it AS the joke? What if the wink, wink, nudge, nudge part is really "we all know how terrible guys like this are, tee hee!"
B: Excellent tee-hee, but i dunno. You're calling Ernest Tubb the Slayer of Country. I mean, sure Alice In Chains was appalled by how people thought their actual misery was a cool thing, Axl was always in "no, seriously, i'm a dirtbag" mode, Neil Young's lamentable reverse psychology heroin epidemic... i can see it, i can read it that way, but can i believe it? How do you reconcile it with the very next sentence being "this is our lifestyle, and we're damned proud of it?" That sounds like Bottlean Mundanity on the surface, but my muscles are sore from all that stretching, and my straw grasping fingers are conspicuously empty. I'm with Dexter, living in sin don't move me either way, but i also get a feeling you're so vague. An indistinct gray blob, even.
I don't know, i thought a night of percolating might help, but nope. Now we're at the point the country guys and gals are both terrible to each other, so it all cancels out and i hate it again. Plus, if you're both meta-arguing for the importance of maintaining strict Christian values, then neither of your sets of strict Christian values are working in the first place; they make you hate each other.
No, it's Friday, i'm tired, what we need is not words. Let's listen to Country Guitars in preparation for more country guitars. May deity have mercy upon our earbrains...
Interlude
Today's after work work. Only 3 more to go (raised garden beds, not redd's)...
Part 2
... now for the after after work work work (carry the 1, yeah, i think i said that right). Someone has to listen to whatever this neon monstrosity turns out to be, and i don't think this rum and coke is gonna do it all by itself.
But first, here's a bizarre real life story. We're replacing the hand of our company logo on everything, notepads, trucks, fridge magnets, everything. So, somewhere along the way while i wasn't paying attention, i guess some white power bronys (i apologize, that was needlessly insulting to bronys), decided they needed their own set of gang signs. Now, creativity not being their strong suit, they apparently chose the "okie-dokie" sign??? This all feels like a senseless waste of the brain cells that now contain this memory for eternity, but it cost me a hell of a lot of money to learn that's how language works, so whatever. Some guys are like "i care about the hand shape of our logo," and i'm like "that's equally dumb." Someone complained, that's apparently what it means now, stimulate the vinyl decal economy by changing the logo and stop filling my brain with garbage." Local business gets some cash flow, we don't inadvertently appear to be racist anymore, win win. I mean if you want to get technical, yes i played the made you look game, but the "a-okay" sign became pure sarcasm while making the Trump smirk almost 30 years ago. I'm a tad more concerned about the actual racism and the fact that it's now "the Trump smirk" than the sign language racists use to find their kindred spirits. Those spirits are probably fireball and jagermeister anyway, so here's hoping they all get alcohol poisoning.
And that all makes sense. I mean, we're listening to a genre steeped in the tradition of refusing to work out your differences like rational adults, and instead yell and beat and murder each other then go intentionally get your truck stuck in the mud so you can test out that them there new winch you got.
I know, Narzon, too mean. That's why i said no words tonight, just guitars. I am of the opinion that most Americans learned English as a second language from watching Dukes of Hazard reruns, but i'm also being too mean because i heard that one Seether song today and it makes my teeth grind. I actually like 99% of Seether's radio singles, but when i find myself asking the radio "does that mean you want people to feel more blame and shame because those were all the good you've ever known?" at 5:45 in the ante-meridiem, i know something is amiss and it's gonna be a long day. Not necessarily Dangerous, but mentally taxing.
Maybe we'll just ask the simple question "what makes these particular guitars Country ones?" Do they have rhinestones hot-glued to them? Barbed-wire frets? Did they steal your husband or forget to wipe the manure off their boots? Ooooooh, they wear cowboy hats and neckerchiefs and Suzie Ormond belts. I don't know why those belts make me think of Suzie Ormond advising you to invest your short-term savings in leather-goods with a hedge on textiles, but they most assuredly do.
Hold on, i have to go see if Chuck Thompson is famous. Google gives me a sports commentator, a few dead guys, a State Farm insurance agent from Macon, Georgia, and a rapper, so clearly no. Add "guitar" and he runs an entertainment group and makes "Nashville Harp Guitars." Andy McKee and Antoine Dufour play those this sometimes. I like Antoine Dufour quite a bit, but he walked out of his Stonebridge endorsement i guess, plus that's not at all what we're listening to tonight. We're listening to Chuck Thompson be endorsed by Baldwin. Here's a fun blog post about that time Baldwin ruined Gretsch for almost 2 decades:
https://blog.gretschguitars.com/2013/05/gretschtech-the-baldwin-era/
Oh sorry, the album? It's lovely. Well, there's female backup singers and their lackluster interpretation of Gordon Lightfoot's eternal classic Early Morning Rain makes me wish i had any place else to go, but otherwise he's just plinking out the melodies like i like. Again, i just like listening to people play guitar like a melodic instrument. Don't let my parade-raining earlier tirade fool you, this is totally lovely and i honestly enjoy it. It's not any different than a Ventures album, or even Tony Mattola. Guy playing guitar, what's not to love?
I hope you realize how insane this all is, because what i'm really trying to get at is that i think Country is actually 3, possibly 4, different genres using the same name. I don't mean the subgenres you're familiar with, like Bluegrass or Outlaw Country or Rockabilly, i mean 3 legitimate parent genres all called Country.
First you have the Country & Western kind of stuff that includes the distinctly Southwestern blend of Mexican, Rockabilly, and Blues. It's fantastic stuff. Second you have the Troubadour kind of traveling entertainer stuff, and that's totally hit or miss like any singer/songwriter type thing. From great stuff like Willy and Emmylou Harris, to the Hollywood/Branson suburban cowboy stuff like Kenny Rogers and George Strait, to total bash my cranium with a hammer schlock like last night (with the exception of Loretta Lynn and her hero Patsy Cline, who i am not joking i actually sincerely love). Third you have the real dregs of the whiskey barrell, the guns and beers and Kenny Chesneys of the world. If you want the optional 4th genre, we can take the equally distinct Folk traditions of Bluegrass/Appalachian music out of the first category, and let it stand on it's own. I'm not the taxonomy driver this time, you decide how we get there. Side note, today's Country isn't Country, it's Pop Rock with a side dish of Rap and exaggerated regional accents.
This album, for all the visual trepidations it might inspire, is wonderful.
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