Five Records With… Matt Hillyer
Posted on | January 15, 2010 | 1 Comment
Matt Hillyer is the frontman for Dallas-based honky-tonkers Eleven Hundred Springs. I interviewed his bandmate Steve Berg here. Eleven Hundred Springs’ new record This Crazy Life comes out February 2nd. Five Records is an occasional feature of artists talking about the music that inspires them. Read more of these posts here.
“This is really hard to find nowadays, I found it at a local record store. I remember seeing the cover and wanting to do what they did — there’s only three guys, and it doesn’t seem like rocket science, but its pretty intricate and interesting. “
“He made no apologies for not being commercial enough. His dedication to his songwriting and his show are what I always admired. I was lucky enough to be right there, he was like my uncle, and a professional on his own terms. He knew when to say no, when it made sense.”
“I listened to this record while we were making This Crazy Life — he had a sound that spanned a whole lot of genres, being able to blend his influences into something all his own. I never like to limit myself to western swing or honky tonk, I like to mess around with all of it. Doug showed that people are supposed to have their own sound, their own voice.”
“I wish I had written “True Love Ways” — that song is just really hard to beat. He wrote it when he was 22, and brought strings into rock music. By today’s standards, he might be considered a nerd, but he is definitely one of the fathers of rock and roll.“
“At times I don’t even know what to think about him — he used to open our shows with just an acoustic guitar. It seems like his contemporaries are moving in one direction, and he just throws something out that no one expected.”
Eleven Hundred Springs – Every Time I Get Close To You
Tags: buddy holly > doug sahm > eleven hundred springs > matt hillyer > reverend horton heat > ryan bingham > steve berg > stray cats
Bruce Robison – “The New Me”
Posted on | January 13, 2010 | 1 Comment
1. On “The New Me”, the latest track from Bruce Robison’s slowly-leaking new record From the Top, he leads by announcing that the story takes place in a small town. Bruce has a way of depicting small towns, much like Larry McMurtry does in The Last Picture Show — full of hard feelings, and occasionally unescapable. The characters in this song struggle with situations that would be hard to re-create in a more anonymous big city, though the feelings of separation and moving on are universal.
2. Robison makes a small distinction in the first verse that makes all the difference. Though he says he has seen his old flame around town, all of the details come through a friend — that the new boyfriend “ain’t that bad”, and that the old flame is “so happy now”. By separating himself from the news, he drums up that heart-sinking feeling of being left behind, though he admits that the new love “looks good on you”, before wondering if he “can do it all over again”. Many country songs brag about being able to move on, but Robison touches a vulnerable nerve here, unsure of himself.
3. The chorus finds him rattling off a series of common phrases — “40 is the brand new 30/ and 30 is the new 18″, before hoping out loud that “losing is the brand new winning”, and expressing is fear that the new boyfriend is “the new me”. Rather than expressing anger at the broken relationship or bravado at the new relationship he has found, Robison looks inside and wonders if he is now outdated, and unable to try again.
4. Robison’s strength is in the small details that make the song personal — which he showed off in “Travelin’ Soldier”, perhaps his best known song. The main character of that song heard about her fallen love and retreated under the bleachers to react, which perfectly encapsulated the hidden nature of their relationship. Here in “The New Me”, Robison lays out the feelings of uncertainty that hit especially close to home in a small town, and does so with the nuances that have made him one of his generation’s best writers.
Ryan Bingham – “I Don’t Know”
Posted on | January 11, 2010 | 2 Comments
1. As music industry pundit Bob Lefsetz said (paraphrased), its a crazy world we live in when fake country music created for a movie is better than most real country music out there. I find that there is still a lot of good country music being made today, but I agree that the Crazy Heart soundtrack has some great vintage sounding numbers. Maybe this should be a Throwback Thursday post, since Ryan Bingham’s version of “I Don’t Know” sounds so much like a Waylon outtake — and that’s not a bad thing.
2. Ryan’s voice accompanies a trebly guitar over spare sounding drums to great effect, creating a live feel with a bit of Sun Records brightness. Bingham finds himself in limbo, wondering what to make of a relationship, noting that he could “write a book” about what he doesn’t know. Truth be told, there isn’t a lot more to this song, lyrically speaking. Its strengths lie in its heavy backbeat and simple feel. Once upon a time, music didn’t have to reach climactic emotional peaks with string sections and boys choirs to have an impact. In turn, Bingham is able to capture a simple feeling of uncertainty and let that be enough.
3. This track, written by T-Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton, has its roots in the 70’s outlaw country movement that produced Jeff Bridges’ fictional character. In the film, Bingham and his band back up Bridges at a stop in New Mexico, taking over when Bridges is racked by sickness. In the real world, Bingham is a perfect candidate to continue blazing the outlaw trail, with his latest offering being a great blend of 60’s rock and troubadour country (read my review of “Country Roads”). Burnett and Bruton have produced a soundtrack that fits seamlessly with the music from that time period, and with enough musical integrity to stand alone, apart from the film. Bingham’s personal style fits well enough to make this track a success.
Tags: crazy heart > dead horses > jeff bridges > ryan bingham > stephen bruton > sun records > t bone burnett > waylon jennings