View topic - General Music Discussion (Non-Japanese)

Let's admit it: country music is too "twangy." Every so often, though, a performer from that category grabs us and romanticizes us for a little while (Leann Rimes' How Do I Live?; how 'bout the Fabulous Thunderbirds; or the more current Faith Hill).

And, heck, if the Tex'-Mex' selections from Kill Bill, vol. 1's soundtrack left you secretly in the closet yearning for more and/or even if you're a slight fan of Stevie Ray Vaughn, Archangels, or likeness thereof -- then The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash is for just for you!

In case you're wondering, the late, great performer has, in fact, OK'd the use of his moniker as the band's website (http://bsojc.com/index_new.php) admonishes. A while back, the site that also asks us (while waiting for their forthcoming live album) to "pick up some BSOJC swag . . . at our online store so I can pay the band for Christ's sake!" Currently, "Mark & the guys" are expanding into producing other bands, like one "Randy Burk and the Prisoners."

And while The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash's sound admittedly retains a country flavor, it is also a distinctive one as the band members' respective backgrounds run from punk rock to 60s music to other categories. Call this brand of "west rock," anything you want but as The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash jets from "that's not in Texas" San Diego like a "big black Cadillac," each of the tunes on their debut 2001 release Walk Alone contain some of the most tightest, defined and, at the same time, easy-on-the-ears gEEEtar playing (Mark Stuart [also vocals]), drummins (Joey Galvan), steel guitar (Steve Peavey), and bass (Clark Stacer) and creative, familiar, knee slapping, and sound lyrics on any album east or west of Texarcana.

I mean, check out the brutally funny lyrics that come in only a little under 45 seconds into the first track, Texas Sun:

'Cause you're the ugliest woman [the ugliest woman]
That I ever knew [I ever knew]
And if I could walk,
I would run

Lay me down in my big, black Cadillac
Underneath the Texas sun.

How 'bout the comedic-laced serial killer/Biblical love tune (well, at least that's how I read it), which intros, you could swear, like a Hank Williams Jr. tune, Seven Steps:

The spirits are willin'
But the flesh is weak
And I see a woman
With a great personality

The best guffaw-inducing lines, though, come from Trains Gonna Roll (which, while listening to the second-to-last song on the album on the road, definitely induced one of those moments when fellow drivers wonder. "what the heck is he laughing at?"):

She's just a sweet ass honey

and from the "don't blame me, I'm just laughing at it" department:

Lord, I love your crooked smile
From your inbred family tree

Musically speaking, though, 440 Horses is the most balanced track on the CD. In addition, the car-based song succeeds not only in turning you into that cowpoke persona you've always dreamed of becoming (you know, from shooting up injustice then walking or riding toward the sunset?) but offers up a cosmic speculation of "The Groom's" voice with regard to the aforementioned Tarantino film:

I ride on through the night
To the waiting arms
Of my crying, blushing bride
Too fast to live and too young to die

Of course, what country record (or, in this case, fraction of a country album) could call itself such without a few sad songs? Lonesome Sky takes you into a quiet cowpoke bar, introduces you to a familiar cowpoke bard whose obligatory tune of lament ("I will wait tonight/I will wait tonight/Beneath the lonesome sky") washes over you as quickly as one'd down that first beer on a Friday evening. More than that, you feel his pain. Lonesome Sky's followed up by, what seems like its "part II," a ditty called Cryin' Over You which includes an upbeat demeanor that, strange as it sounds, might be justified when paired with our sad cowboy's refreshed -- or at least different -- point of view ("First you talk so sweet/And then your mouth is full of trash/Smoked up all my cigarettes/And took my cash . . . But what can I do?/I've got to learn to love the pain.")

Indeed, this album's value lies not only in its shared respect for lyricism and instrumental portions (and, c'mon folks, music should be FUN, right?) but in its imagery as well. Kinda reminded me of Styx's Mr. Roboto in a sense.

Interstate Cannonball, Blade, Truckstop In La Grange, Silver Wings,and Memphis Woman constitute the rest of the debut's tracks and are equally entertaining as the aforementioned entries.

Above all, if you feel that current pop culture has feminized you too darn much (and I'm talking to the guys AND the gals in this instance, by the way) then slip in one of The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash albums into your CD deck of choice (preferably one that the entire neighborhood can hear) and gain your ground again, cowboy (or -girl)!