dbt albums-week 6: southern rock opera

[Zip City]

Nice nice nice

Fav line from Plastic Flowers:

He was full of good home cooking when he crashed the savior's door

Total gut punch

[Tequila Cowboy]

Rock on dime. You're absolutely nailing this motherfucker.

[Swamp]

Fantastic job Dime! Great stuff by everybody too
So much of this shit hits so close to home.
I don't even know where to start.

[Daddy_played_poker]

My first introduction to the band was when a friend turned me onto Decoration Day which planted a pretty deep-rooted seed. He followed the next week with The Dirty South which is still my favorite. Next I got SRO which was like nothing I had heard before. As Smitty said, there are small nuances in the lyrics and music that still blow my mind. It would still be cool to hear this played live from beginning to end as has been mentioned before. Great thread!!

[dime in the gutter]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual northeastern snob, SRO is art, or close enough to art so it doesn't make a difference. Both by definition and result, you don't have to have had personal experiences that closely follow the narrative to relate to the album, to get it, for it to have great personal meaning to you and for it to blow you away.

When I was 17, I was a nerdy college freshman w/out a car trying to date 19 & 20 yr old college girls. Yeah, good luck w/ that. The closest I had ever come to the South was either Washington DC, or Miami Beach, both of which are a lot closer to NYC than they are to the south. Most of my friends didn't drive and while we drank our share, drugs were the high of choice, supply and dollars willing. I never thought about getting out of my town because the only place i ever wanted to be was my town (if you want to call NYC a town). For part of those years I thought that Lynyrd Skynyrd was a pretty good take off on the Allman Brothers, tho i eventually did come to my senses. If u think any of that matters, you're missing the point. No doubt that if the personal details in SRO resonate w/ you, that is a particular kind of special listening experience. But it's not the only one and it's way too limiting to see the album only through that lens. The reason the album is the masterpiece that it is, is that it speaks to the big themes, the big issues, the universally important stuff. You don't have to go to prep school to get Catcher in the Rye and you don't have to live in a small southern town w/ your widowed lawyer daddy to get To Kill a Mockingbird. Yes, I am making those comparisons deliberately. I'm not saying SRO is better or even as good as those books, but it can certainly be talked about in that company as an aesthetic experience.

Zip, of course it's an opera. It says so right in the title.

great post. really outstanding.

not snobby but certainly fancy.

[Tyler]

Plastic Flowers, is one of, if not the great sleeper track in the band's repetoire. One I wish they'd pull out a bit more often (I've only caught it live once...)

[dime in the gutter]

kudzu, props on your contributions to this thread. outstanding.

I don't think dime mentioned it in this thread but I believe he has surmised before that some of the songs without the Skynyrd narrative are meant to be by Betamax Guillotine.

i'm not sure i have it all that clear in my mind. just to me, seems like a lot of skynyrd/betamax/dbt overlap in the "who are they singing about here?" department. as biographical as it is about skynyrd or betamax. a vulcan mind meld of the 3, if you will.

[dime in the gutter]

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.

they did break the alabama shakes and they were on snl.

[Tyler]

kudzu, props on your contributions to this thread. outstanding.

I don't think dime mentioned it in this thread but I believe he has surmised before that some of the songs without the Skynyrd narrative are meant to be by Betamax Guillotine.

i'm not sure i have it all that clear in my mind. just to me, seems like a lot of skynyrd/betamax/dbt overlap in the "who are they singing about here?" department. as biographical as it is about skynyrd or betamax. a vulcan mind meld of the 3, if you will.

I made a post on this a long time ago, I think on one of the song of the week threads.... lemme see if I can find it

Edit: Found it!

I think there are three layers to SRO - since the album is DBT telling the story of the south and Betamax Guillotine. Some bits are clearly, in the Canterbury Tales tradition, framing story. Really it breaks down into 3 categories:

"Framing Story"

Days of Graduation
The Three Great Alabama Icons
Let There Be Rock
Road Cases

"The Saga of the South/Betamax Guillotine"

Birmingham
Ronnie & Neal
The Southern Thing
Wallace
Cassie's Brother
Life In The Factory
Shut Up and Get on the Plane
Angel's and Fuselage

"Betamax Guillotine Songs"

imagine this was a Behind the Music/Rocumentary - Plenty of the "bands" own songs would be useds as interludes and background music

72 (This Highway's Mean)
Dead, Drunk, and Naked
Guitar Man Upstairs
Zip City
Women Without Whiskey
Plastic Flowers on the Highway
Greenville to Baton Rouge

[Smitty]

There was a planned "Betamax Guillotine" EP. I know it would've have "Don't Cock Block the Rock" - it might have also had "Three on the Tree" but not sure about that (I know it was recorded for SRO but dropped).

[Kudzu Guillotine]

I don't think dime mentioned it in this thread but I believe he has surmised before that some of the songs without the Skynyrd narrative are meant to be by Betamax Guillotine.

i'm not sure i have it all that clear in my mind. just to me, seems like a lot of skynyrd/betamax/dbt overlap in the "who are they singing about here?" department. as biographical as it is about skynyrd or betamax. a vulcan mind meld of the 3, if you will.

I appreciate your (and pretty much all) insight but I try not to think about it too much or I'll have a vulcan mind meld meltdown.

[Drop D]

I still remember the first and second time I heard SRO. A mate lent it me sometime in 2006 when I was living in Bangkok. My commute was a 45 minute drive around the outskirts of the city. First time on the car stereo, I remember Days Of Graduation, but it didn't grab me and I took it off. Next night after work, I put it on again and it did grab me. Irresistibly.

Freebird was an iconic song when I was at school in the '70s so that got me listening. However, after that, Lynerd Skynerd became viewed deeply suspiciously in the UK in general by portraying Albama (where every white person must be a born racist, surely? Look at all the shit that happens there.) with an emotional resonance. But here was a white band putting another side of the story, and invoking Neil Young, no less. And not only one other side, but many, many facets, all in a deeply intelligent, engaging and challenging way. And to a full bore R'n'R soundtrack. I'm always willing to listen to another side of the story.

That disc stayed on the car stereo for weeks as I drove round Bangkok, day and night, and I got drawn deeper and deeper into the story. My initiation into Rock 'n' Roll had been Ziggy Stardust when I was about 13, a concept album with a very loose concept, - what's a 13 year old supposed to do? Fill in the blanks with a vivid, untried and unlimited imagination, that's what I did -, so the idea of songs drifting around a loose concept is just fine by me. My next real love was The Clash, a band who wrote and sang about real people, ordinary and extraordinary and about injustice and possibilities and told stories firmly rooted in where they came from. And here was a band from a different continent and a culture I knew little about, doing exactly the same! Again, just fine by me. This always strikes me as the statement these people had to make, regardless of the consequences. And I'll always have a deep admiration for DBT for having those convictions. And thankfully, those consequences have been hugely positive. I love to be challenged by the music I listen to, and judging by DBT's following since SRO, many others do too.

I've been an avid fan of DBT ever since. Got all the records, seen them a couple of times, but my favourite memories are still of driving on the streets of of an far-away Asian city listening to stories of the far-away American South.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned and apologies if it has but I think it's worth noting that this record was fan funded way before stuff like Kickstarter became the norm. I think that's pretty significant, especially considering that this is the album that first put them on the map in a big way as far as a four star review in Rolling Stone and the Truckers being signed to Lost Highway. It seems like almost a lifetime ago now too but this was during the era when they were doing some dates with Lynyrd Skynyrd. I'll never forget the uproar from the Skynyrd faithful when Patterson dared to criticize them in the pages of Spin for that piece of shit song they had out called "Red, White and Blue".

[UncleFrank1990]

Zip City is such a gut punch. I don't know any male over the age of 16 that can't relate to that one. Shit, I know I did.

[javamyth]

#2. Buford Pusser



Matewan/Wikimedia Commons
Buford Pusser was the sheriff of McNairy, Tenn., back in the 1960s. When criminals weren't busy laughing at his name, they were busy getting their asses busted by the Pusser of Justice. Buford was a hell of a sheriff, and as such, made a lot of enemies. Among them was the State Line Mafia. When the Mafia robbed a nearby restaurant, killing one of Pusser's friends in the process, you could practically hear the wailing guitars of vengeance echo out from Pusser's office.



Pusser went on a righteous tear, arresting, driving out of town, or outright killing several members of the SLM, including the mistress of their leader, Carl "Towhead" White. (No, Pusser didn't go full evil in his pursuit of vengeance; she tried to kill him first.) The SLM retaliated by murdering Pusser's wife. And if they had seen any action movies, especially the several they ended up making about Buford Pusser, they'd know this didn't shut Pusser down. It only sealed their fate.
Now a man with nothing to lose, Pusser took out two mafioso by straight-up driving his car through the front of an illegal Casino. As if to prove that he had gone full Payback-style antihero, Pusser next paid for a hitman to take out Towhead White. With the SLM splintered from White's death, Pusser personally went after the rest of his wife's killers, even as they fled the state.



Buford Pusser, a man of righteous vengeance and even more righteous hair.
Now, nobody is officially copping to the illegal vigilante kills that followed, but strangely enough, nearly all of the suspects in the murder of Pusser's wife were found shot dead. Only one suspect survived, and that's because he voluntarily went to jail as soon as he heard Pusser was in town. With his revenge now more or less complete, Pusser simply went back up to Tennessee and showed up at work again. Hopefully he at least clocked out, as we're pretty sure you can't use company time for a Vengecation.


Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_20434_5- ... z2TkORE8SJ

[cortez the killer]

Did we have some Dirty South leakage into the SRO thread?

[Beaverdam]

This is really dorky, but hey, I'm among a bunch of fellow DBT dorks/fanatics....

I flew to Orlando over the weekend to take my kid to Disney World. On the flight down I listened to Shut Up and Get on the Plane, Greenville to Baton Rouge, and Angels in the Fuselage in that order. I'd listened to these songs many times previously but listening to them in successive order while flying was really cool....Kind of like the DBT style of listening to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and watching the Wizard of Oz. Not too many people live to tell about experiencing a plane go down, but DBT did a pretty good job of putting the listener on the plane and the crash. Listening to these songs while flying was incredibly cool. "Mommy, why was daddy crying and talking about angels on the plane"...I"m kidding/making that part up...I never cried, and my son didn't ask that question, but I was probably close! No one on here would have thought less of me, right?

I enjoyed this so much I listened to the songs again on the flight back yesterday. However, these three songs are just part of the reason SRO is a great album. Someone called it "high art" earlier, and that is so true. Multiple listenings just reveal multiple layers.

While SRO may not be my absolute favorite DBT album, it was my first and i what "hooked" me. The album's creativity and ingenuity are unmatched. I too agree that hearing the entire album live would be quite a treat. Happy Monday, y'all!

[RolanK]

Did we have some Dirty South leakage into the SRO thread?

Probably a glitch in the Matrix. Happens when they change something-

[Iowan]

Zip City is such a gut punch. I don't know any male over the age of 16 that can't relate to that one. Shit, I know I did.

I have had the conversation about "who was your 'Zip City'?" on multiple occasions with my friends.

[Rocky]

Like many this was my entry into DBT freakdom. I'm just mad (at myself) for not getting into this band earlier having never seen Malone or Hicks or Isbell play with The Truckers. The album is simply filled with some of the most iconic songs in the Truckers canon and really in modern rock 'n roll. It is quite ambitious and my hats off to them for pulling it off.

Kudzu, many thanks for the Patterson interview on page 1 of this thread and I wasn't aware of the Mark Kemp book Dixie Lullaby. Sounds like something I would enjoy. Double Bonus!

And for Pete's sake the narrator of Zip City isn't a nerd unless we are going to call every teenager a nerd.
He's just a guy who is trying to get laid.

[Rocky]

random musings/questions re: act 1.

1. patterson harmony on hwy 72 is sublime.
2. who is stanley?
3. caught a quick walking, slick talking guitar picker headin' out my back door.....
4. how do you record 2 lp's worth of three guitar rock and still have enough room for the lyrics?
5. love when patterson says...when company's comin'/a in 3 icons.
6. stated as fact that george wallace is in hell. some harsh judgement for context.
7. when he tied that chain to the front of my car and pulled me out of that ditch that i slid into.....
8. followed directly by don't know what his problem is....
9. props on all the background indiscernible vocals running at the beginning of days of graduation.
10. sireeeen
11. cooley hitting the high note in dead, drunk and naked.

Now about Stanley.......
There are some pretty incredible rumors spreading about your live shows. Want to talk about some of them?

HOOD: We played once a month at the Nick in Birmingham. It was always on a Monday night and it rained every single one of them. The first time we ever got a decent gig there, someone was killed in the parking lot the night before. That story inspired the second verse of the song "Birmingham" on the new album.

http://swampland.com/articles/view/titl ... on_truckin

Also from the same link Kudzu posted.

"The van broke down more times than I can remember. We rode into a gig in Houston on the back of a tow truck. It was broken into in NYC playing CBGB's. We had thousands of dollars worth of stuff stolen in Chattanooga. We broke down in Pensacola FL., rented a car to get to a gig in New Orleans, and when we got there the show was canceled so we hauled ass back to Pensacola, where they let us play. We played until 7 a.m. then staggered out into the street and had a brawl in the middle of the street. The next day the bartender fixed our van for free while I puked in his yard. We dedicated our live album ("Alabama Ass Whuppin'") to him."

That is some rock 'n roll shit right there.

[Swamp]

We had just met Luke and Sarah that night on the wall (some people call it the rail)
I had told Luke that I read some where that the band was influenced by the crowd as
to what they played, so I was wearing my "Tonight's the Night" shirt.
When they started Graduation Day Luke turned to me with a big grin, we gave hi-5's
and said to each other "We're getting Ronnie and Neil!!!!!!" Love you guys.

[Cole Younger]

Great job dime. I'm so late to the party that I can't add anything. I LOVE this record.

[uncle rickey]

When they started Graduation Day Luke turned to me with a big grin, we gave hi-5's
and said to each other "We're getting Ronnie and Neil!!!!!!" .

Ha! I remember it well. That was a great night.

[Swamp]

[brett27295]

Anyone have a copy of SRO on vinyl that isn't a warped, crackling mess? I've had 2 copies of this album, both are some of the worst pressed records I have in a collection of over 2,000. What a shame for such a fantastic title.

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Anyone have a copy of SRO on vinyl that isn't a warped, crackling mess? I've had 2 copies of this album, both are some of the worst pressed records I have in a collection of over 2,000. What a shame for such a fantastic title.

I have what I believe is one of the first pressings but it's never been played. I remember hearing similar stories about other Lost Highway releases such as Ryan Adams' Gold. I got the impression they were being released more for the novelty of vinyl than for audio quality. Of course, I'm not one to speak since I haven't even played mine.

[linkous]

Anyone have a copy of SRO on vinyl that isn't a warped, crackling mess? I've had 2 copies of this album, both are some of the worst pressed records I have in a collection of over 2,000. What a shame for such a fantastic title.

I have what I believe is one of the first pressings but it's never been played. I remember hearing similar stories about other Lost Highway releases such as Ryan Adams' Gold. I got the impression they were being released more for the novelty of vinyl than for audio quality. Of course, I'm not one to speak since I haven't even played mine.

My copy is on clear vinyl This was not advertised(I bought it online) and I would never have bought it if I had known it was on clear vinyl as I have heard the quality is normally poor. To be fair, it doesn't sound too bad - it's also on fairly thin, brittle vinyl, nowhere near 180g (although, again to be fair, they never claimed it was).

[Duke Silver]

Anyone have a copy of SRO on vinyl that isn't a warped, crackling mess? I've had 2 copies of this album, both are some of the worst pressed records I have in a collection of over 2,000. What a shame for such a fantastic title.

I have what I believe is one of the first pressings but it's never been played. I remember hearing similar stories about other Lost Highway releases such as Ryan Adams' Gold. I got the impression they were being released more for the novelty of vinyl than for audio quality. Of course, I'm not one to speak since I haven't even played mine.

My copy is on clear vinyl This was not advertised(I bought it online) and I would never have bought it if I had known it was on clear vinyl as I have heard the quality is normally poor. To be fair, it doesn't sound too bad - it's also on fairly thin, brittle vinyl, nowhere near 180g (although, again to be fair, they never claimed it was).

I have that same one (clear vinyl). Sounds pretty decent to my ears and I haven't noticed any warping, but I'm no audiophile, either.

[Swamp]

From the night we met our dear friend Sue and her late husband.
I remember introducing him to Craig and convincing him to buy
Live from the 40 Watt.





I found this in the Mrs' archives from the first time she filmed in 06