dbt albums-week 6: southern rock opera

[dime in the gutter]

new york critics and redneckers.....







recorded: 9/2000
released: 9/12/2001

disclaimers:

1. this write up may be a bit sketchy with facts and figures....kind of fitting for an lp for which redneck lore makes up a large part of the story.
2. i will run off with lots of ridiculous pontificating and overblown hyperbole....completely nausiating.
3. many mistakes, typos and general keyboard inefficiencies contained here in.


the one. the album that changed everything for dbt. made all music since possible. recorded in a uniform shop warehouse in birmingham. graveyard shift monthish long recording session. i like to assume that the late night recording was due to the fact that the band had day jobs. a last ditch effort by a band with little money and even fewer prospects. earl hicks was somehow heavily involved in it's genesis....i think.

imo, southern rock opera is one of the great achievements in rock and roll history. a concept record based on a semi-autobiographical, fictitious band (betamax guillotine) following the career arc of a real life band (skynyrd) that, in many ways, had unwittingly become some sort of rallying point in space for all sorts of ill conceived and wrongly placed expectations and ideas.

social commentary of the highest order. the duality of the south. death. racism. drugs. politics. mythological characters. mispent youth and randomly applied consequences. for some, life saving rock and roll. for some others...not the case. throw in god and a few angels and you've got yourself a bona-fide, all time classic rock and roll album. wrap your head around all that and then begin to think about the music. three guitars slinking and twisting in and out. hammering away. fat benders, ripping solos and riffage for the entirety. 90+ mins of face melting rock and roll. i never think of the lp in terms of songs but more as a single piece. you know, it's a very, very long song.

first record with wes freed art work.

critically a huge, huge, huge record. i got turned on to it thru this david fricke review in rolling stone.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080222171129/http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/thedrivebytruckers/albums/album/195461/review/5945922/southern_rock_opera

and then they went and named the mother fucker southern rock opera........

balls, i tell you.







to be continued......

[Zip City]

I have a lot to say about this one, but have to go to work.....

thoughts percolating, prose forthcoming

[beantownbubba]

Can't think of anybody better to take on this fairly impossible task, dime. I look forward to the rest.

[Clams]

My favorite, and IMO the very best, of all the DBT records. So much going on in and around this record. SRO has at least four songs that are permanent fixtures in my DBT top 10 - WWW, Zip City, Ronnie & Neil and LTBR. Even the second tier of SRO is incredible - Shut Up and Get on the Plane, Southern Thing, A&F, 72, etc. But beyond that you have all the stories, places and the people that populate these songs. And as dime mentioned - the fucking guitars. Plus the circumstances under which it all got written and recorded. Just awesome. Looking forward to the next installment.

[RolanK]

Yessir! Not gonna interrupt to much here. Looking forward to the continuation, and what the rest of you have to say about this masterpiece. Just want to say that this was the album that "sealed my faith" with DBT and was probably the pinnacle in the process of my re-discovery of LOUD Rock music. I was "late to the party" with DBT, only after The Big To-Do did I start listening to them when they were scheduled to play a show over here. As I often do I started with the most recent album (TBTD) and liked what I heard and wanted more. I read somewhere the praise of The Dirty South, but for some reason bought SRO as the next album. I remember first listen, a bit too low on the stereo while I was doing something else and not really paying attention, first song... the rumble... then BOOM...Ronnie and Neil... Had to go back and start over from the top again with the stereo at proper level (LOUD). An hour or two later I was sold.

(I tend to get hooked on the smallest little details when I listen to music: Ronnie and Neil, that little guitar lick at 1:58, can't get it out of my head.)

[rlipps]

My entry point to all things DBT in 2002. Was a senior in college and was driving back to UK one Sunday evening when I heard what I later found out was Let There Be Rock on the radio. The station was WOKI out of Knoxville, and since I was heading north, the signal was about to run out. Pulled over on the side of the road till the song was over so I could see who the artist was. Found out it was DBT and the next day after classes were over, went straight to Spy Records to pick up SRO, which was the only record they had. Fell in love with the songs, the backstory, liner notes, everything about it. Listened non-stop for weeks.

Had some friends that had recently moved to Florida to pursue their musical dreams. Called them to tell them bout this great new band I'd discovered, and coincidentally, one of them had saw SRO on the shelf at a record store, thought the cover looked cool and purchased it. They were raving about it too.

Still my favorite DBT album to this day, and one of my favorite albums of all-time by any artist. On any given day, Zip City might be my favorite song of all time too. Can't say enough good things about this album, can't wait to hear the rest of Dime's thoughts.

[beantownbubba]

My entry point to all things DBT in 2002. Was a senior in college and was driving back to UK one Sunday evening when I heard what I later found out was Let There Be Rock on the radio. The station was WOKI out of Knoxville, and since I was heading north, the signal was about to run out. Pulled over on the side of the road till the song was over so I could see who the artist was. Found out it was DBT and the next day after classes were over, went straight to Spy Records to pick up SRO, which was the only record they had. Fell in love with the songs, the backstory, liner notes, everything about it. Listened non-stop for weeks.

Had some friends that had recently moved to Florida to pursue their musical dreams. Called them to tell them bout this great new band I'd discovered, and coincidentally, one of them had saw SRO on the shelf at a record store, thought the cover looked cool and purchased it. They were raving about it too.

Still my favorite DBT album to this day, and one of my favorite albums of all-time by any artist. On any given day, Zip City might be my favorite song of all time too. Can't say enough good things about this album, can't wait to hear the rest of Dime's thoughts.

The sad part of this story is that you didn't cut class.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

earl hicks was somehow heavily involved in it's genesis....i think.

I think it was Earl and Patterson that originally conceived of Southern Rock Opera as a screenplay. Somewhere I have an old press release for either Gangstabilly or Pizza Deliverance where Patterson references a then work in-progress called Betamax Guillotine, the early working title for Southern Rock Opera. I thought I had that press release up here with me in the city but evidently it's still in storage down at the coast. Next time I'm down that way I'll be sure to dig it up. I may even have an old "My Mama Ran Off With the Drive-By Truckers" sticker stashed away with it. On the screenplay tip, I think it's also worth noting that at one time there were plans to shoot a musical (for lack of a better term) version of Southern Rock Opera down in Austin that would have included the Mulettes dressed up as cheerleaders in attire akin to the ones that can be seen in Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. I'm sure Patterson and Jenn could elaborate on that much more accurately but for whatever reason, those plans never came to fruition.

My live introduction to Southern Rock Opera was a couple back to back shows in early October of 2001 when they played the Firebelly Lounge in Wilmington and Pine Hill Farm in Durham, NC. The first night was a full on electric show and the second was a marathon four hour concert where they did most of Southern Rock Opera in an acoustic setting. Of course, 9/11 was very fresh on everyone's minds so songs like "Angels and Fuselage" took on a new meaning in the wake of that tragedy. We were fortunate enough to have Wes and Jyl Freed in the house for that Pine Hill Farm show. Emotions were already running high but when Jyl chimed in on "Angels and Fuselage" the tear ducts opened. Wet Willie's "Keep On Smilin'" was next which was the perfect compliment to "Angels" and was cause for everyone to sing along. I've never experienced anything quite like that moment, saying it was "an emotional rollercoaster" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Around that same time, local radio host and Sugar Hill Records rep Steve Gardner (who also put on the concerts at Pine Hill Farm) was heading up an e-zine he called Fresh Dirt. To celebrate the release of Southern Rock Opera, he devoted an entire issue to the album that included contributions from Steve, Patterson, Rick Cornell, Jeff Wall and myself. Thanks to the magic of the Wayback Machine, here's the essay Patterson wrote for that special issue:

1977
by Patterson Hood
(originally appeared in Fresh Dirt #11, Nov/Dec 2001)

I remember riding down Wood Ave. in Mom's 1973 Pontiac Grand-Am and hearing "Sweet Home Alabama" for the first time. I was 9 and thought the name Lynyrd Skynyrd sounded funny and kinda cool. I really dug the guitars. When I was 11, my girlfriend at the Skating Rink said they were her favorite band. For the next week or so they were probably mine too. My Dad was a session musician in Muscle Shoals. Leon Russell had nicknamed them The Swampers. Around that time, Lynyrd Skynyrd had recorded there and referred to "The Swampers" in the final verse. I thought it was cool that he was immortalized in a hit song. Much as I had thought it was cool when Mavis Staples called him "Little David" in their song "I'll Take You There".

I was still too young to understand how different my life was from the other kids at school. I just knew I got my ass beat daily and had nothing in common with the other kids. They all loved sports. All I cared about was movies and Rock. By 13 I had hundreds of records (and hundreds more taped) and was pretty much a walking encyclopedia of (useless I was told) facts about the records and films I loved.

I quit getting beat up in 7th grade when I was befriended by the biggest, meanest kid at Forest Hills Jr. High School. Wendell Graham was a big kid before he stayed back a grade. He spent a good bit of his time playing football with a bunch of his high school friends. All the girls loved him and the boys were scared shitless of him. He looked about 4 years older than the rest of us. He never bullied or took advantage of his position, but did manage to retain a silent air of menace that made the actual use of force seldom necessary.

I had just raised my status among the school bus' predominantly black population by bringing my boom-box and blasting Parliament's (then new) Mothership Connection album and my already fairly massive Earth Wind and Fire and Ohio Players collections. Wendell was a huge Skynyrd fan and one lunch period I turned him on to Blackfoot and we became fast friends.

My life changed fast and drastically. Not only was I not ever picked on again, suddenly I felt much like a 7th grade Goodfella.

The driver of my school bus (suddenly it was "my" school bus) had formerly been a lightman and driver for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Soon I was sitting in the front of the bus milking him for wild Rock and Roll road stories. I got to hear a few.

Cheryl Lynn Holt was in 5 out of 6 of my classes that year. Because we had to sit in alphabetical order, she sat in front of me for 5 hours everyday. Cheryl Lynn Holt had the most incredible ass I had ever seen, (probably to this day). She wore a pair of Faded Glorys with an arrow stitched in faded denim pointing down from the rear beltloop to the outer arc of her incredibly round butt. The fact that she was somewhat swaybacked and in the first real stride of puberty combined to create a creature that overloaded every circuit in my lonely little, not quite adolescent brain. Every boy in my class was in love with Cheryl Lynn, but I worshipped her. I sat in class everyday writing songs filled with encoded messages to her. Since I was now suddenly friends with Wendell, I was "in there" enough for her to take a close interest in me (at least as friends), so she read every song I wrote. She was bombarded daily with a barrage of my stream of conscious ranting, all designed to make her fall irresistibly madly in love with me.

Cheryl Lynn Holt had other plans. She was able to use her fine little body to enter the world of High School boys while still just a 7th grader. A fifteen year old boy who doesn't play football or isn't some kind of class stud has few options (as the girls ALL loved the upperclassmen). While messing around with a Jr. High girl might get him some ragging from his friends, most of his friends would have taken the same advantage of the situation.

While my songs didn't get me the results I had wished, Cheryl Lynn did grow genuinely and deeply fond of me. We became fast and furious friends with her telling me a lot of her secrets and sharing her adventures with this or that High School boy, as I tried to imagine myself being one of those lucky S.O.B.s and actually treating her with respect and genuine love. See I didn't want to just fuck her, I was in love with her. At 37 I often find love and all of it's complexities to be unfathomably complicated. But at 13 it all made perfect sense. I just had to win her over and if she would so much as give me half a chance, I was sure I could and would absolutely blow her mind. (The funny thing, looking back on it, is I probably was closer than I could actually have comprehended).

One day that fall (October 20, 1977) my school bus driver drove up with tears in his eyes. He was a big burly somewhat gnarly man with a gruff exterior. He told me that the plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd had crashed just outside of Baton Rouge LA (It was actually the swamps outside of McComb, MS) and several of them were dead. He had known them personally when the band was still a struggling act. He had been particularly close to Road Manager Dean Kilpatrick who was among the dead. Also dead was lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, background vocalist Cassie Gaines and her kid brother Steve who had just joined the band as their badass new guitarist.

Because my Dad had also known them for years, the driver and I talked about the band the entire way home. I had come close to seeing them the previous spring at the Von Braun Civic Center in Huntsville AL. The show had been cancelled at the last minute because Ronnie had gotten in a fight at the Atlanta airport the night before. Their drinking, drugging, fighting, and general hard living was well known back then. It certainly added to their allure but also often detracted people's attention away from how good the writing and playing was and what a genuinely kickass live band they had become.

By the fall of 77 the band was in the process of reinventing itself. The huge rebel flag that their record label had earlier put behind them as a backdrop had come down. Ronnie was often quoted in those later days as wanting the band to be known not as a Southern Rock Band but as a Rock and Roll band. He might still have an evil wink, knowing that most great Rock and Roll had its origins in the south. Even the British Invasion bands that the members of Skynyrd had grown up emulating and loving were all largely influenced by Southern American music. The band's massive touring schedule necessitated their management leasing them a plane. In Dallas TX, they had found a bargain, a 1947 Convair turboprop that had been retired from service with Eastern Airlines. The leasing company customized it like an airborne tourbus.

Soon the love affair between the band and the plane turned sour. On their way to a show in Greenville SC. the right engine had malfunctioned and members of the band saw a flame shoot out the back of it. Once on the ground they called their management and began trying to secure another plane to fly them to Baton Rouge the next day. They were told that there would be one waiting for them once they got to Louisiana. Cassie went as far as booking a flight commercial, but the next day was one of those beautiful sunny days when you feel invincible. Cassie sold her ticket and got in the plane with the rest of her comrades.

Late in the flight the right engine began having difficulty. The pilot, thinking that it was on fire, panicked and dumped both tanks of gas. Soon he was faced with trying to find a place to make an emergency landing. He tried for a small airstrip but soon realized that he wouldn't make it that far and began doubling back towards I-55 in hopes of landing on the freeway. Instead, the plane careened off a row of trees and disintegrated into the swamp killing the crew, 3 band members and the road manager. The surviving members of the band were severely injured. Drummer Artimus Pyle hiked 2 miles through the swamp with several broken bones and ribs sticking out of his side. The owner of the house he came up on believed he was a prowler and shot him with buckshot.

Their brand new album, "Street Survivors," had just been released the previous Monday. The cover featuring the members of the band on what looks like a set out of Gone With the Wind engulfed by flames. Some of the family members objected to the cover in the wake of the crash and MCA Records quickly pulled it from distribution, replacing it with a generic band shot with black background. (Ironically the famous original cover had been created by the same art director who had done the Beatles' original "butcher babies" cover for Yesterday and Today. Stranger still, he was a surviving passenger on the plane when it went down).

I bought my copy of "Street Survivors" that Friday and played it all weekend.

Around that time a boy from our class was doing some yard work at Cheryl Lynn's house and was able to sneak into her room and rummage through her drawers a little. He stole a couple of nude photographs that her stepfather (a policeman, no less) had taken of her. He brought them to school and proudly showed them off to anyone who wanted to see them. When given the chance to see the object of so much of my desire in that light, I refused. All I could see was Cheryl Lynn crying hysterically. Wendell hunted him down and in one punch left him crying in the dirt.
(the girl's name was changed for the sake of privacy)

Patterson Hood © 2001

[dime in the gutter]

it is impossible to overstate the breadth and depth of the music on sro. masterful writing and playing that announces genius with a full throated roar. completely original and earnest. look deep within what you think you know and turn it up.

rock and roll.


act 1.



days of graduation: opening shot that sets the place in time. 1970's. before madd, high schoolers dying in horrific car accidents were a universal rite of passage.....tear assin' thru them backstreets of town where me and bobby tear assed so many times before. patterson's cool vox laying out urban myth.





ronnie and neil: riffology 101. lot of pent up shit caught in this one. all this hate and violence can't come to no good end..... self contained history lesson. them rock stars today ain't half as real.....



72 (this highway's mean): the only rout out of town. hell's on both ends of it....nowhere in between..... cooleyism after cooleyism....so many. getting out is never easy.



dead, drunk and naked: poster child for burnout....kick the needle. kick the pills. can't get out.....deeper problems exist. no one talks about me now....the voices are too loud. i used to think our hero was actually dead and talking from the grave.



guitar man upstairs: life view of cooley's downstairs neighbor. mean old cuss. life ain't been fair and he's seen a lot of it. prolly 10 or more of them sittin all around...smoking that stuff drinking that hard liquor down. more brilliance.





birmingham: city trying to cleanse past sins. sordid history for sure......but still home for lots of folks. reinvention. bull connor and magic city.



the southern thing: duality of the southern thing. amazingly sums up the existence of non race bating southerners in 5 mins. you think i'm dumb, maybe not too bright. a 2nd cousin to the night they drove old dixie down.





three alabama icons: massive song. not your daddy's rock and roll. historically accurate. restrained genius. large shadows cast by larger than life men. duality drenched. even if folks deserve condemnation......better think twice about why we do it. sweet tea.




wallace: feels and sounds like hell. i guess hell's just a place for kiss ass politicians who pander to assholes. love me some back up singers.......oooooohhhhh, alabama!



zip city: cooley's take on youthful skirt chasing.......but much more. our hero is a thinking man's knucklehead. a perfect rock and roll song. that blood red carpet at the salem church of christ ain't gonna ever see no wedding between me and you. more twisty, redneck savant syntax from stroker ace. mad guitars. love patterson's back up harmonies.



moved: i dig this tune. drug shooting hero has burned all his bridges at home. forced to leave to start anew. it doesn't work.


to be continued.....

[LastLawson]

Have to agree with everything that's been written. Nice write-up dime, and thanks for that article Kudzu!

This album is packed with goodies. Has 3 of Cooley's best five imo (72,WWW,ZC). But what really grabbed me at first was Three Great Alabama Icons. I get chills up my spine everytime I hear PH sing "is in heeeeeell now". It says a lot about Hood's writing ability that he can write a song that has an effect on people from a different region; I'm from the North. In terms of Malone's contributions, Moved has really grown on me. Also, his vocals on Wallace are perfect. Cassie's Brother is a bit too fuzzy for my ears.

Love all the guitar work as well. Quick question though. Are the solos at the end of LTBR are in this order: Malone, Hood, Cooley?

[Cole Younger]

Wow what a thread!

Like dime and a lot of others, I find myself struggling with the enormity of how great this album is. TDS is my favorite, but man SRO is just so freaking good in every way.

I was on my way to Lowes after I got home from work and was listening to Disc II of SRO. I was thinking about how great it is and how amazing it is that the album even exists. So many different ways that it could have never happened and as Patterson says, the idea sounds nuts. But as Cooley says, it was just crazy enough to work.

I almost didn't get into the Truckers because the write up I read about SRO had me worrying thay it was some sort of hipster irony thing. But what makes it so great is they are being totally sincere.

Good Lord I love this band.

*And one more thing. In the last couple of years Patterson has insisted that they never set out to be a big, loud, guitar band. I guess I'll have to take his word for it. And I know there are other sides to the band. But you know when they sound the bsolute best, look like they are having the most fun, and seem like they are being who and what they were meant to be? When they are being a big, loud, guitar band.

[bovine knievel]

Can't think of anybody better to take on this fairly impossible task, dime. I look forward to the rest.

X2

[rlipps]

My entry point to all things DBT in 2002. Was a senior in college and was driving back to UK one Sunday evening when I heard what I later found out was Let There Be Rock on the radio. The station was WOKI out of Knoxville, and since I was heading north, the signal was about to run out. Pulled over on the side of the road till the song was over so I could see who the artist was. Found out it was DBT and the next day after classes were over, went straight to Spy Records to pick up SRO, which was the only record they had. Fell in love with the songs, the backstory, liner notes, everything about it. Listened non-stop for weeks.

Had some friends that had recently moved to Florida to pursue their musical dreams. Called them to tell them bout this great new band I'd discovered, and coincidentally, one of them had saw SRO on the shelf at a record store, thought the cover looked cool and purchased it. They were raving about it too.

Still my favorite DBT album to this day, and one of my favorite albums of all-time by any artist. On any given day, Zip City might be my favorite song of all time too. Can't say enough good things about this album, can't wait to hear the rest of Dime's thoughts.

The sad part of this story is that you didn't cut class.

After 6.5 years, I was trying to graduate before the parents' money ran out, lol

[Smitty]

In terms of Malone's contributions, Moved has really grown on me. Also, his lyrics on Wallace are perfect. Cassie's Brother is a bit too fuzzy for my ears.

Patterson wrote "Wallace". Against popular opinion, I'm a huge "Moved" fan.

[LastLawson]

In terms of Malone's contributions, Moved has really grown on me. Also, his lyrics on Wallace are perfect. Cassie's Brother is a bit too fuzzy for my ears.

Patterson wrote "Wallace". Against popular opinion, I'm a huge "Moved" fan.

Oops, meant vocals instead of lyrics... will edit.

[Tyler]

Is Wallace the only song in the DBT canon NOT sung by the guy who wrote it?

[Zip City]

Is Wallace the only song in the DBT canon NOT sung by the guy who wrote it?

Outside of covers, yes, I believe it is

[Smitty]

Is Wallace the only song in the DBT canon NOT sung by the guy who wrote it?

I believe so; there's a couple old solo shows where Patterson sings "Panties in Your Purse". One show he attempts "Women without Whiskey" (by request) but quickly aborts, saying something about Cooley "would kick his ass".

[RolanK]

Cheryl Lynn Holt! She was in my class too. <3

[brett27295]

I didn't grow up in the South, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. I didn't grow up in the 70's, I grew up in the 80's. Still Southern Rock Opera speaks to me on so many levels and contains some of my favorite DBT songs. Taken as a whole it's mind-blowing. And I don't think you have to be from the South to understand and appreciate what it's saying.

I've lived south of the Mason/Dixon line for the past 16 years, the first 10 of those years in a rural area of NC right near the SC border. There was little difference between that area and where I grew up other than the accent and the fact everyone didn't love the Pittsburgh Steelers. I grew up in a rural area with nothing to do other than sports and listening to music. I was somewhat of a tweener because I played sports year round but I also loved music, listening to it, reading about it (Circus & Hit Parader), talking about it, driving around back country roads blasting Aerosmith, drinking Busch pounders & smoking cigarettes... There were times when my life sucked and music certainly kept me going. I never saw Ozzy Osbourne but I sure saw Motley Crue and Guns N' Roses.

When I listen to Southern Rock Opera it reminds me of when I was growing up and I think it does that regardless of where or when you came of age. And just once damnit, I want to be at a show when DBT opens with Days of Graduation -> Ronnie and Neil!

[Zip City]

Here comes my stream of consciousness ramblings on this amazing record



This might be some blasphemy, but hey, it's me.....

This was my first DBT album. Bought it after seeing them on TDU tour (sight unseen). Fell in love with it.

Great songs, some of the best.

But...

This isn't a "rock opera" in any definition I know.

Despite the fact this was born out of a potential screenplay, there IS NO STORY here. If you handed this to someone who had never heard it, let them listen for a week, then quizzed them on what the story is, no one could answer you. Who are the characters? What's the plot? Let's not conflate this album with Tommy or The Wall.

The album IS a successful concept album, however. Nearly every song is a brilliant observation on some aspect of Southern life in the 70's/80's.

That said, it doesn't matter. It's a semantic argument. And "Musings and Observations About Growing Up in a Changing South" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "Southern Rock Opera".

----------------------------

This is easily DBT's most misunderstood album. To many lazy critics, this is an album about Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yes, some songs ARE about them, especially the run at the end of Side 4, but that's missing the point. LS are simply the entry point, the lens through which Hood/Cooley chose to frame their observations.


----------------------------

This album was Cooley's coming out party. On the first 2 records, Cooley had contributed just 4 songs (compared to 19 by Hood). On SRO, Cooley adds 5 more, and to date, they're some of the best songs he's written.

SRO also started the clear difference in songwriting styles between the two. As I've said before, Patterson writes plot and character, while Mike writes scenery and subtext. This is especially true on SRO (with a few exceptions). Songs like Ronnie & Neil, Let There Be Rock, Greenville to Baton Rouge, Three Great Alabama Icons, etc. are extremely straight forward. Hood just lays out the facts/story with little ambiguity. He balances these with more observational songs like DD&N, Plastic Flowers and The Southern Thing.

Cooley, however, takes a completely different approach to SRO's concept. 72 (This Highway's Mean) paints a metaphor as the highway as a sort of barrier, keeping him from escaping. Guitar Man Upstairs sees Mike stepping into the shoes of someone a generation older, bitter and angry about having a bunch of "Cooley's" as neighbors. Zip City is a brilliant distillation of the male teenager. On its surface, WWW isn't about the South, but its impossible to know with Cooley ( ). And finally, Shut Up and Get on the Plane wedges itself into the run of Hood's "Skynyrd History" songs and takes a broader, more metaphorical approach to the plane crash. It also provides us with two of my all time favorite Cooley lyrics, "I guess the price of being sober is being scared out of your mind," and "Living in fear's just another way of dying before your time"

------------------------------

I'm sure I have more to say (shocker, I know), but looking forward to more posts from everyone

[dogstar]

And one more thing. In the last couple of years Patterson has insisted that they never set out to be a big, loud, guitar band. I guess I'll have to take his word for it. And I know there are other sides to the band. But you know when they sound the absolute best, look like they are having the most fun, and seem like they are being who and what they were meant to be? When they are being a big, loud, guitar band.

x2

[cortez the killer]

imo, southern rock opera is one of the great achievements in rock and roll history. a concept record based on a semi-autobiographical, fictitious band (betamax guillotine) following the career arc of a real life band (skynyrd) that, in many ways, had unwittingly become some sort of rallying point in space for all sorts of ill conceived and wrongly placed expectations and ideas.

Sounds like a watershed moment.

social commentary of the highest order. the duality of the south. death. racism. drugs. politics. mythological characters. mispent youth and randomly applied consequences. for some, life saving rock and roll. for some others...not the case. throw in god and a few angels and you've got yourself a bona-fide, all time classic rock and roll album. wrap your head around all that and then begin to think about the music. three guitars slinking and twisting in and out. hammering away. fat benders, ripping solos and riffage for the entirety. 90+ mins of face melting rock and roll. i never think of the lp in terms of songs but more as a single piece. you know, it's a very, very long song.

The essence of a massive, overly-ambitious, complex, sprawling, double-edged sword of an album distilled ever so succinctly by our own redneck poet/historian, dime in the gutter.

Very well done.

[Toke]

This album started my love of DBT. I saw a little three sentence blurb in Guitar Player that got my interest, and the next day I saw it at Best Buy. So I picked it up and listened to it constantly for days. I was amazed such great stuff wasn't getting any real recognition.

This came at a time when I was considering packing up my life and moving a couple thosand miles to a place where I knew no one and had no job lined up. "Shut up and get on the plane" spoke to me and helped me decide. Yes i was aware of how that turned out in song, but I didnt associate THAT much with it..

12 Years later, its still one of my all-time favorite albums. Looking forward to more from DBT and from dime on this fantastic album.

[beantownbubba]

Reading this thread got me thinking about one of the great paradoxes of being a music fan. Definitely true of rock music fans but I think probably true across genres: The more you love a song or an album, the more you listen to it. And the more you listen to it, the more familiar it becomes. Familiarity is a 2 sided coin: It sometimes allows you to find new meaning and hidden depths in a song or album but it also lulls you into sometimes experiencing the music as little more than background, comfortable yet not demanding attention. Which is a long way of saying I wish I could remember the first time I heard this album and in particular i wish i could remember the first time i heard "zip city." The song's greatness (perfection?) is undeniable and it is an anthem and kind of a ritual in concert, but, well, you know, there's the first time and there's every other time.

[Tequila Cowboy]

Oddly this was the fifth DBT record I go into after DD, TDS, PD & GB in that order. Not sure why. I got into DBT in 2004 so I got caught up with those current records and rather than go to SRO I went back to the beginning. I think I finally picked it up in the spring of 2005 and had already heard several of the tracks live. All that being said the weight of this record was not lost on me. A motherfuckin' Rock Opera in the 21st century, complete with recurring musical phrases and lyrical themes? Get the fuck outta town. The ambition and scope of this record is impressive for anyone let alone guys who were where they were at at the time and it holds up against the best of the, admittedly, limited Rock Opera sub genre. For grins I once listened to Tommy, Quadrophenia, Zen Arcade and SRO in one sitting. Yeah, in case you were wondering I think it was good weed, but that's not the point. It was quite the exercise and my conclusion was that Zip City might be the best anthem on any of them (Love Reign O'er Me comes close).

[John A Arkansawyer]

Which is a long way of saying I wish I could remember the first time I heard this album and in particular i wish i could remember the first time i heard "zip city." The song's greatness (perfection?) is undeniable and it is an anthem and kind of a ritual in concert, but, well, you know, there's the first time and there's every other time.

I do remember hearing "Let There Be Rock", "Road Cases", and "Women Without Whiskey" for the first time, quite distinctly. There wasn't time for more. I stopped at Vinyl Solutions on my way out of Tuscaloosa and bought a copy, and listened to Side One on the way home with the top down. I remember the first two songs and the "Birmingham"-through-"Wallace" run from that drive. That's set my sight of this record ever since. Since my punk rock name is Johnnie Zip, "Zip City" soon meant a lot to me*, but the first hearing is an elusive memory. Hearing it open my first show ever, though, that's grooved right in with the other great moments.

All that being said the weight of this record was not lost on me. A motherfuckin' Rock Opera in the 21st century, complete with recurring musical phrases and lyrical themes? Get the fuck outta town. The ambition and scope of this record is impressive for anyone let alone guys who were where they were at at the time and it holds up against the best of the, admittedly, limited Rock Opera sub genre.

Something my other great teacher, John Clellon Holmes, said once about writing novels in the late twentieth century was (paraphrased from distant memory) that North American novelists were writing perfectly good, consistently safe novels, as opposed to the novelists of Latin American, who were swinging for the fences with every book, often falling flat on their faces and occasionally hitting one out of the park, and that it was the Latin American novelists who were writing the books to be remembered by the ages.

For grins I once listened to Tommy, Quadrophenia, Zen Arcade and SRO in one sitting.

Which one of these things does not belong?

It was quite the exercise and my conclusion was that Zip City might be the best anthem on any of them (Love Reign O'er Me comes close).

That's an interesting comparison to make. My first reaction is to compare "Women Without Whiskey" instead. My second reaction is to want to think about it first.

*I once sent an email to the friend who first who turned me on to SRO which said, in its entirety, "Would you know what I meant if I said 'Zip City's so far away'?" And of course he did.

[Tequila Cowboy]

For grins I once listened to Tommy, Quadrophenia, Zen Arcade and SRO in one sitting.

Which one of these things does not belong?

Surely you're not suggesting the great Husker Du Zen Arcade does not belong?? I'd put it ahead of Tommy and probably too close to call with the other two.



I do hope I haven't hurt Beantown's head again

[beantownbubba]

I do hope I haven't hurt Beantown's head again

Nah, I now take 3 advils prophylactically before reading your posts, Cowboy. Just kidding, but you know, now that i mention it...

Actually, I'm w/ you here, except to note that while "See Me Feel Me" is not the equal of the songs you nominate, live, when the Who was on and having one of those nights, it might have been the greatest anthem of all.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

I didn't grow up in the South, I grew up in rural Pennsylvania. I didn't grow up in the 70's, I grew up in the 80's. Still Southern Rock Opera speaks to me on so many levels and contains some of my favorite DBT songs. Taken as a whole it's mind-blowing. And I don't think you have to be from the South to understand and appreciate what it's saying.

That aspect of it always reminds me of this line from R.E.M.'s "Good Advices": "I'd like it here if I could leave and see you from a long ways away". I have never lived anywhere but the South so I can't really relate but I do understand the sentiment. When Mark Kemp was writing Dixie Lullaby he discovered the Truckers during a time when he was living outside of North Carolina so he was able to relate to Southern Rock Opera (which was new at the time) in a big way. So much so, that it plays a fairly significant role in Dixie Lullaby as the book and record share similar themes. I'll even go as far as to say that that book makes an excellent companion to Southern Rock Opera.

Which is a long way of saying I wish I could remember the first time I heard this album and in particular i wish i could remember the first time i heard "zip city." The song's greatness (perfection?) is undeniable and it is an anthem and kind of a ritual in concert, but, well, you know, there's the first time and there's every other time.

By the time I saw the Truckers in Wilmington and Durham in the Fall of 2001, I believe those were my third and fourth shows, respectively so, chances are, I'd heard some of the cuts from Southern Rock Opera before that weekend. That said, I do remember hearing the album for the first time. That would have been on the trip from Wilmington to Durham the next day. It was a scene straight out of "Tornadoes" as the skies turned pitch black along the way. Thankfully, the storm passed and it turned out to be a safe journey.

We were just riding along drinking, smoking and talking about how we didn't really listen to the music from "our high school parking lot." But now that we have moved away, we could really enjoy and appreciate how good it really is and how misunderstood it was by most of its most fervent fans.

^For those that might interested in reading it, I just re-discovered this vintage interview with Patterson, Cooley, Earl and Rob Malone conducted by Dick Cooper that appeared on the Swampland website back in October of 2001. I had the pleasure of meeting Dick at that Pine Hill Farm show. Hearing his old war stories from the Skynyrd days was just as much of a treat as the concert was.