Old 97’s – Page 2 – Country Universe

Artist Spotlight: Ronnie Fauss

January 10, 2015 Sam Gazdziak 0

If you were listening to New West Records’ An Americana Christmas sampler over the holidays, you would have heard tracks from the likes of Dylan, Cash, Emmylou and other Americana legends. Tucked in alongside those

The Best Singles of 2014, Part 2: #20-#1

December 30, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 15

The countdown concludes with our top twenty singles of 2014. Check out the first twenty entries here, and look for our countdown of the year’s twenty best albums tomorrow. #20 “The Devil is All Around”

The Best Singles of 2014, Part 1: #40-#21

December 29, 2014 Kevin John Coyne 11

Does failure to reach a consensus indicate a year that lacked quality, or a year that had enough interesting singles that subjective taste is enough to prevent a consensus? This was the dilemma faced by

Playing Catch-Up

June 10, 2009 Dan Milliken 7

It’s one of those life/blog paradoxes: we dedicate a lot of words to the new – new releases, new issues, new news – and yet, when it comes down to it, our personal, non-internet selves spend just as much time trying to get up to speed on things we’ve missed. History is fat, full of great stuff that happened while you were preoccupied with playing on jungle gyms or raising babies. There’s always something to catch up on if you set your mind to it!

Like right now, for instance, I’m discovering the music of the 90’s. I was under 10 and on a Pacific island for most of those years, and was honestly only marginally aware of the “country” classification for most of them. So I’ve been diving in.

Although the 90’s are regarded by many as a very strong period for mainstream country, my current catch-up squeeze is the alt-country group Old 97’s, and one song in particular: “The Other Shoe”, from their ’96 set Wreck Your Life. It’s a catchy, clunky little tune about a creepy husband who tells his wife he’s leaving for Phoenix (the specific phrasing is an apparent nod to Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” – cute), only to hide under their bed and await the appearance of her lover, whom he promptly guns down along with his adulterous wife.