(Doolittle)
Slobberbone's Crow Pot Pie is a jolting collection of drunk ass, shit kickin', punk flavored, country rock tunes. Slobberbone has brought the genre of alternative country rock back to its backwoods, cry in your beer and piss off the back of your trailer, roots. Imagine Uncle Tupelo's strange cousin with a Replacements hangover (and a bad attitude to match) and you've basically summed up Slobberbone.
The band was formed in Denton, Texas by 5 drinking buddies who played their first gigs in the back of a local beer store. With those beginnings, it's not too hard to believe that most every song either deals with drinking, love gone wrong, or, remarkably, both drinking AND love gone wrong. These, of course, are the themes of any good country and western song, but, Slobberbone doesn't delve into the normal C&W cliches.
Lead singer Brent Best has a way with words that is, well, quite troubling. There are some highlights. In the 10 minute epic "16 Days", he sings "Once we had meaning, but now we're just hollow." Kind of deep lyrics... until you recall that a verse earlier he was crooning about "watching the dog pee on the car." Dogs peeing are just part of Best's lyrical oddities.
In "I can Tell Your Love is Waning", he laments repeatedly that his failing relationship is like "getting caught behind a cattle truck and all you smell is shit", until he finally stabs his love to death after listening to "Mack the Knife" on a blaring radio. Sick? Yes, but it's worse when you find yourself merrily singing along about the smell of the cow shit and the pleasures of slicing up your love in a bathtub.
With such lyrics, Slobberbone risks falling into a Mojo Nixon schlockfest. But as strange as they get, Best seems to write from the heart. Crow Pot Pie is filled with honesty, urgency, and regret that recalls the silliness and ultimate seriousness of a band like Weezer. Even when Best sings "you put my heart into a headlock, and threw it on the ground" in "Shoot You Dead", there's sincerity in the air.
Slobberbone's music is as earnest as the lyrics. The two-step beat runs under everything, and the guitars, banjos, and fiddle alternate between Grand Ole Opry grins and post-Nirvana grunge. "Little Sister" plays like a western movie theme song with a Mason Proffit groove, and "Tilt-a-Whirl" heads to the land of Southern Culture on the Skids. And, there are enough southern rock guitar solos that you'd think Slobberbone were the sons of Lynyrd Skynyrd who listened to punk after their daddies went to bed.
Who knows what the future of Slobberbone holds? Crow Pot Pie is an indie release, and it's not clear when they'll get signed to a major. What is clear is that Slobberbone will sell a ton of records someday. "Ruin Your Day" beats anything groups like the Lemonheads have done, and the success of Wilco and Son Volt after the Uncle Tupelo break-up revealed a market for this type of music. But, until then, search out Slobberbone and be like all the Uncle Tupelo fans who say they "listened to them when."
For more info, try e-mailing slobber@doolittle.com or write to Doolittle Records, P.O. Box 4700, Austin, TX 78765.
