Sorry for the late post. My car decided to kick the bucket in Houston and all my mental energy was spent dealing with that this week.
But anyway, last week I got the new album by a band from Georgia called Dead Confederate. The album is called Sugar. Now, imagine that you are about to listen to this record. Simply based on the name of the band and the album, what would you think it would sound like?
Right? OK, well here’s a sample of what Dead Confederate actually sounds like:
“Quiet Kid,” by Dead Confederate
This record has absolutely not the Southern rock jam that the title suggests. They’re a loud indie-rock band. In a not-very-flattering review, Pitchfork actually holds it against Dead Confederate that they don’t “sound like Georgia.” Coming from Georgia myself, I began to wonder if anyone thinks the following bands sound like their home states:
My Morning Jacket, from Louisville, KY
The Riff Tiffs, from Houston, TX
. . . And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, from Austin, TX
More than anything else, Dead Confederate’s music actually reminds me of Trail of Dead, who, to be fair, got their start in Hawaii and Portland, not Austin.
So these few Southern indie-rock bands don’t sound particularly Southern. Well, that doesn’t prove anything. Plus they’re all from the the big city anyway.
Polvo, from Chapel Hill, NC
Man or Astro-Man, from Auburn, AL
Paramore, from Franklin, TN (WARNING: I endorse this music only insofar as it serves my point)
Surfer Blood, from West Palm Beach, FL
Neutral Milk Hotel, from the middle of fucking nowhere, LA
Erm. . . OK, well, what about these guys?
The Black Keys, from Akron, OH
The White Stripes, from Detroit, MI
Earl Greyhound, from Brooklyn, naturally
And of course, John Fogerty, from Berkeley, CA, who may very well have never seen a bayou in his life before writing this song
Where am I going with this? I guess I’m trying to say that expecting a band from the South to sound “Southern” is silly. This kind of music has been divorced from location since the first time a teenager in Oregon or Pennsylvania tried his hand at imitating Elvis. The bands from the South that DO sound that way frequently do it self-consciously, to make fun of it (Southern Culture, who toss fried chicken at their audience), comment on it (The Drive-By Truckers, who have an album called Pizza Deliverance), or pander (any band that makes use of rebel flag iconography). Southern rock has no geographic component. Given that, Southern bands that play indie rock, a particularly cosmopolitan genre to begin with, certainly have no reason to sound like the place where they happened to grow up. Of course, naming your band Dead Confederate is bound to give some people the wrong idea.
I saw Dead Confederate play SXSW this year, and it was one of the few shows I thoroughly enjoyed. Having never heard their records before, I too thought they’d be some sort of southern rock pretend band. Instead they sounded like early Flaming Lips, punishing loud and simple and droning. But still catchy underneath it all. They did not sound southern.
I downloaded one of their records when I got home, Wrecking Ball. A lot less scuzz and they actually did sound sorta “southern” (mostly thanks to their singer’s Drivin’ and Cryin’ voice). They also didn’t sound as good once you could parse the lyrics and individual tracks. I missed all the noise that had rendered the vocals and alt country touches nearly impenetrable.
Sounds like you might like Sugar. Very noisy.
I haven’t read the pitchfork review you refer to but that does seem like a silly criticism.
The whole notion of region and music is worthy of discussion. I want regionalism in music. At the same time I am a product of globalization and can’t really call any region home myself so it does seem, from my perspective, like something more and more forced out.
I have a certain distaste for CCR based on the whole bayou business.
Thanks for renewing my crush on Mary Huff. I had not seen that SCOTS pic. Wowzers.
Yeah, I’m kind of picking on the review unfairly, because he just tosses off that criticism at the end of the review. I just thought it was an interesting exercise to look at some Southern rock bands that don’t sound Southern at all.
Regionalism sounds great in theory, but in practice it just ends up becoming an aesthetic ghetto that further marginalizes anybody who isn’t from New York. Because bands from New York don’t have to be regional, as everyone knows that artists from New York are automatically plugged in to everywhere in the world. :/
I’m not sure i would qualify Chapel Hill as the big city, even less back in polvo days, but i guess it does have a big state univ so that probably gives the town a bit more of a cosmopolitan feel. but trust me there are parts around here that still feel like the south will rise again.
Oh and Alley, eat your heart out
I am dying over here. When I finally get to your town I’m going to kiss every girl I see starting with that divine creature.
When i first moved here, i didnt know SCOTS was from here, and I’d already had a crush on Mary since i saw them back at Mary Janes (i think). And one day i’m sitting at the bar and here she comes with my friend Autumn, i was totally star struck, luckily i was also a bit sauced, so i was just, Mary, I LOVE YOU (which i’m sure she’s heard over and over). But this was when we first moved here. We’ve had many drinks and fun since then. with Mary and all those guys, they really are a smart funny bunch. And still bringing it live like few bands around.
were you playing with Texas Guinness Lovers when we opened for SCOTS at Fitzgerald’s? I could’ve sworn you and Diane were there. We got to hang out with them backstage. They were very cool.
Hmm, i dont remember that. but i guess its possible. though it could’ve been after we had moved to NY?
I’m not sure i would qualify Chapel Hill as the big city
Right, that was my point- that even bands from less cosmopolitan places in the South don’t necessarily sound like it.
oops. sorry, if i had looked at the “cities” listed for the other vids, i would’ve caught that.
The only problem I’ve had with Dead Confederate is with the goddamn music critics ruining it for me. I listened to and enjoyed their debut EP and first album proper, and then when Sugar was coming out, actually made the mistake of reading a couple of reviews, both of which pointed out the strong resemblance of Dead Confederate to Nir-goddamn-vana, and now that’s all I hear. GODDAMMIT.
A lot of the stuff on Sugar says Trail of Dead more than Nirvana to me. But if you think Dead Confederate sounds like Nirvana, wait ’til you hear Officer May.
Well, to be honest I never listened to Trail of Dead, so I can’t really speak to that. And I didn’t used to think Dead Confederate sounded like Nirvana at all; I need to go back and listen to their earlier stuff and see if it retroactively sounds like it to me now. Mostly it was just a matter of reading these reviews that kept saying that, then thinking “really? I don’t remember them sounding anything like Nirvana” and then hearing the new record and thinking “oh shit, there it is”. Unfortunately, I’m not much of a Nirvana fan, so it bothers me. I’m thinking the damn critics just planted this idea in my head and now it’s stuck there. There’s JUST enough truth to it that I can’t dismiss it completely, so now I’m hearing it probably more than it really exists in there. Dammit.
I gotcha. I recommend that you go download Source Tags and Codes. I bet that will clear the Nirvana association.
I didn’t hear the Nirvana at all. Not on Wrecking Ball and not at their show. Nor did I hear any resemblance to Trail of Dead (love me some Source Tags and Codes). Mayhap I should give the new record a listen.
The new one sounds a little different from their older records…
Not really into Dead Confederate, but maybe they just bored me with their live set at SXSW. Maybe the record’s better. As for “Southern Rock”, if the Black Crowes weren’t so overplayed, I’d think they’d be much more respected by music critics. But that’s me…guy who totally got into the Stones and Zeppelin from childhood. But by the time the Crowes came out…who really needed another sleaze-blues band? I am a little tired of hearing about them, but I think they’re a much better band in out-of-context retrospection. As far as popular music goes, I think they’ll age well.