Brad Paisley: Total Pro

His Southern WV / PA Comfort Zone

Brad Paisley gets up close and personal

The Inky Jukebox has been to many, many live shows over the years. Memories of them tend to be a vague blur. But I can recall in sharp detail the very first one I ever attended: it was Kris Kristofferson at the Royal Albert Hall, and I was ten years old. Perhaps it was so memorable because it was a grown-up outing, or because the venue was so impressive. But mostly, I think it was because of the physical sensation of feeling the music resonate in my whole body, rather than just hearing it with my head. And the volume: live music is LOUD.

Thus it was that I wanted my own children to experience that world-changing sensation at a similar age. This weekend, I took my son to see Brad Paisley for his ninth birthday. He’s a music fan, and he’s learning to play guitar – a ¾ size Fender. And he loves Brad Paisley.

If you’re going to bring a child to a show, then Paisley is a good bet: he puts on an entertainment extravaganza, and it’s all family-friendly. His use of the video screen as an interactive tool is better than anyone in the business, and makes other acts’ generic imagery seem like it belongs to a bygone age. My son’s mind was blown again and again by the visual humor and trickery that accompanied and enhanced the songs. When, at the end of the set, Paisley lets his guitar drop into what looks like a water tank, he gasped; moments later Paisley himself leaped in, appearing to splash. It’s a neat bit of showmanship that doesn’t grow tired even if you’ve seen him do it before.

Three Brads

Paisley knows how to keep a crowd engaged, and at this venue – the amphitheater of his youth – he understands that moving out into the crowd to be closer to those on the lawn is important. Sure enough, when he moved to a small stage just 20 yards from where we stood, it gave his acoustic set added resonance. My son was thrilled that he could actually SEE him up close. Unlike some big name performers, he doesn’t seem afraid of the crowd. He also peppers his show with localisms that raise huge cheers; there’s no “Hello Cleveland” moments here.

If there’s one performer that my son loves more than Paisley, it’s Carrie Underwood, his awards-show hosting partner. Expecting to see her appear on the big screen for her part on the duet “Remind Me,” we were delighted that she actually appeared onstage in the flesh, and boy, did she sing her guts out.

If that wasn’t enough, Paisley had a genuinely astonishing special guest liven up part of the show: six year-old Avery Molek, the drumming prodigy, came onstage to deliver a blistering rendition of “Hot For Teacher” on the concert kit with the full band. The Inky Jukebox got it on tape. Want to impress a nine year-old wanna-be rock star? That’s the way to ignite ambition right there. 

Whiskey Myers Rocks Slow

Come mess around my memory for a while...

Whiskey Myers recently released an actual music video for their lovely song "Virginia." It's long been  an Inky Jukebox favorite. We also love the way this video feels like it was made before 1975 (except with sharper image quality), and that these guys sport exceptional facial hair. 

If you like beardy men, beautiful guitar playing, Southern rock, and music in general, you'll love this band and this song. Go buy their record. 

Whisky Myers website.

Two Lanes of Emotional Traffic

Tim McGraw and Brantley Gilbert, Pittsburgh May 18, 2013

You’d think a concert featuring Brantley Gilbert and Tim McGraw would be awesome, right?

Not so much.

Their Pittsburgh stop wasn’t so much Two Lanes of Freedom, as the tour is billed, as it was one of those traffic jams in which you keep wanting to switch lanes because the other one is going faster than yours, except both are pretty much at a standstill.

Let me explain.

Brantley Gilbert is a young, muscular up-and-comer who puts on a live show in the good old boy tradition, with crowd-rousing songs about drinkin’ and fightin’ and women and guns.

Tim McGraw is an established superstar with a 20+ year career of monster hits behind him.

A t-shirt poll of the crowd confirmed that a large percentage of them were big fans, having shelled out $30 for his current tour shirt, huge flags and the like. McGraw shirts? hardly a one. In fact, I still don’t know what his tour shirt looks like because no-one was buying / wearing them.

Gilbert’s set was great, but far too short. Half an hour is not nearly enough time for a star in his own right to open a show, especially when he has such a long set list of hits. I have seen longer opening sets by third-string acts and American Idol runners-up.

McGraw’s set, on the other hand, was not just too long, but too weighted down with back catalogue twang and new songs with which the crowd was unfamiliar. Sure, he filled in with a predictable selection of the anthems without which folks would burn the place down, but as soon as he whipped the capacity (perhaps over-capacity) crowd to a full-voiced sing-along, he slapped us down with an unheard-of number.

What do people do when the tempo is messed with? They find other ways to entertain themselves. With a crowd of folks in the mood for Gilbert’s type of music, this means getting drunk-ass drunk and socializing. I use the word politely. What McGraw might not have picked up on while he sang along to the video screens, was that no-one was paying attention. No-one was singing along. The youts behind The Inky Jukebox decided the lawn was going to be a mosh pit.

The stage was also decidedly not fan-friendly. This is the first time The Inky Jukebox can remember that an aisle or cross of some kind did not project out into the crowd; instead, the bands were compressed onto a shallow stage which kept them at a considerable distance. At one point, McGraw delivered an entire song sitting on the lip of the stage while adoring female fans caressed his legs. I’m sure they paid a lot of money for the opportunity.

The whole sex-symbol angle, which once upon a time McGraw owned, felt tired and a tad cheap. The show was bloated with ballads and slow-tempo numbers, but the emotion that should have resonated from them — from him singing them, that is — was left to the video backs instead. This was especially true of his duet with Taylor Swift, which fell flat due to technical difficulty: the video wasn’t synched to her voice, and she was filmed in profile, never looking at the crowd. It’s not easy to incorporate an absent singer into a live show, but Jason Aldean did it well enough with Kelly Clarkson.

“Mexicoma” is an abysmal tune and sticks out like a sore thumb on McGraw’s new album. It should never be played at a concert.

This was also a show without McGraw’s old backing band, The Dancehall Doctors — and the new guys played like session musicians rather than a veteran arena band, willing and able to play with the audience, not just to them. Songs began and ended abruptly.

At the every end of the night, Brantley Gilbert reappeared on stage to sing a couple of “Truck Yeah’s” with McGraw for the show’s closer. What, Tim, you didn’t want him upstaging you for the whole song? 

Caught In The Act: Eric Church

Sometimes the best version of a musician’s work is on an immaculately produced and engineered CD, one that has seen the loving care of electronic tools to craft a sound that is better than real life could ever be. Sometimes you go to see this musician live and realize that perhaps they’re better performing in a studio.

And sometimes, the reverse is true.

Eric Church is a live act. The way he delivers a song on the stage is a dynamic, powerful experience, and is one of the reasons his star has risen so far and so high in such a relatively short period of time. The Inky Jukebox has been a fan of Church since his early days, when we trolled YouTube for shaky footage of him performing on tailgates. It doesn’t matter if it’s just him and a guitar in a parking lot or accompanied by a full band and light show on a stage, he gives 100% every time.

This summer he’s playing stadiums on the Kenny Chesney tour — which will be interesting to see, because playing a stadium is a wholly different task than playing an amphitheater or arena. We’d say it will introduce him to a whole new fan base, but come on : who are we kidding? If you’re going to a Chesney show, you’re already familiar with Church.

At this weekend’s Academy of Country Music Awards, Church delivered the kind of performance that folks who have been to his live shows have seen, but those watching on TV haven’t: a stripped down acoustic set. This time, he also did it without his signature ball cap and aviator shades. It's a tonic for those who only associate him with loud, fast-paced floor-thumpers. Dude can sing and play.

We like the beard. It echoes the stark video he released for “Like Jesus Does.”

Church has said that people will view his career as pre- and post-Chief. The Inky Jukebox isn’t so sure. Every one of his prior albums is a complete statement, and is just as well-crafted.

Perhaps he feels this way because he has just released his first live album, which is heavily loaded with songs from Chief (understandably, since it was recorded during a show on his most recent tour). It’s not a greatest hits album, as some have said: it’s merely a live album. But it is the next best thing to hearing Church play live, and will give anyone who has never seen him an idea of the energy he exudes on stage.

If you like your country rocking — you’ll love this record. The iTunes version has 17 tracks to the physical CD’s 11, so it’s absolutely worth the download. 

American Idol Winner: Angie Miller

Votes Versus Views

At the risk of making an entire season of American Idol irrelevant, The Inky Jukebox would like to offer at this early stage (and we waited until week two, because week one would have seemed a tad premature) news of the winner.

She’s Angie Miller, and the reason why she alone has demonstrated that the competition doesn’t really matter anymore is that she understands that “being in it to win it” means having a social media team on hand who can capitalize on your TV appearance(s) to promote your work elsewhere immediately.

Oh, and she’s also ridiculously good.

The Inky Jukebox would like to pretend that Angiemania started when the voting did, but really it began the minute the sudden death rounds aired, featuring Angie at the piano giving a rendition of a self-penned tune called “You Set Me Free.” The second she opened her mouth and sound came out our ears pricked up, and so did the judges, which we know because the cameraman captured their astonished reactions. Footage of this has since attracted over 2,760,000 views on YouTube.

The note she hits at 1:11 is the money note. Whatever note that is. Cha-chinggggg.

Anyone visiting Angie on YouTube will find a whole slew of professionally taped videos of her delivering popular songs (often in more interesting versions than the originals, though not necessarily her own interpretations), which by accident or design appeal directly to her core voting demographic. Covers of Taylor Swift, Demi Lovato, Bon Iver (via Bonnie Raitt), and even last year’s cutsie Philip Philips show that she has the chops to compete with the best of them.

Angie has what publicity peeps call “the total package,” in that she is pretty, confident, talented, and can sing and play with apparent comfort and ease. You cannot tell (gasp!) that she’s partly deaf. She’s already her own brand. She’s a little bit Taylor Swift, a little bit Sarah McLaughlan, a little bit Martina McBride.

It is for this reason that her post-Idol future is secure. The Inky Jukebox already wants to buy her album.

Votes…views. Honey badger don’t care ya’ll. Honey badger laughing all the way to the bank. 

Vehicular Homicide

Smash Hits! 

Don't cheat on Carrie Underwood, dude

Carrie Underwood has an interesting relationship with cars. Generally speaking, if there’s  car in a song of hers, it’s getting wrecked, bad, and someone is getting hurt. Bad.

In her first post-Idol hit, Jesus had to take the wheel when the car hit a path of ice, saving the mother and child inside.

She teaches a cheating boyfriend a thing or two about bitch-ass crazy by taking a Louisville Slugger to both headlights etc. etc. in “Before He Cheats.” And that’s before he cheats, apparently.

What makes her appreciate how small she is in the world at large? According to her video for “So Small,” it’s walking back a suicidal car crash which is shot in exquisite slow-motion, like rubberneck porn.

And in her most recent single, Two Black Cadillacs are evidently used to squash a cheating husband to death, driven by his homicidal wife and mistress. Huh? Again, the car’s body is shown un-crumpling as if the deed had never been done. What does the mistress leave on his coffin? The car keys.

Traditionally speaking, cars appear in American music as tropes for freedom, escape, the great open road. They are literally vehicles for moving from one life to another. In Underwood’s song “Don’t Forget To Remember Me,” she uses a car to drive off into adulthood.

Now, when you hear that Underwood has a new “smash hit,” you know what this means.

Big and Rich: That’s Why We Listen

It's The Song

Here’s some songs you might have heard:

Jason Aldean’s “Hicktown,” "Amarillo Sky,” and “Johnny Cash.”

Faith Hill’s “Mississippi Girl,” and “Like We Never Loved At All.”

Tim McGraw’s “Last Dollar (Fly Away).”

Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman.”

They were all co-written by John Rich, one half of the duo Big and Rich. Big Kenny Alphin is the big tall guy in a top hat. Rich is the smaller guy in a suit and a cowboy hat with an anachronistic moustache.

You may have heard their 2007 song “Lost In This Moment,” which is played ubiquitously at weddings.

Or you may have smirked at their other song, “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy).”

If you listen to country radio, chances are your ears have caught a song written by a posse of talented writes (such as Sarah Buxton), “That’s Why I Pray.”

The reason The Inky Jukebox likes Big and Rich is not because of their politics, which are, like many of the artists The Inky Jukebox champions, not exactly the same as The Inky Jukebox’s. We like them because every now and then, two people come along and sing together and make a glorious noise. Their two voices are lovely apart, but gorgeous together. Big Kenny provide the dark velvet undertones, while John Rich claims the earnest upper register.

If you were the captain of a band which had to write and perform songs, Big and Rich would likely be your first picks. (Fine, Mac McAnally might be in there too.)

Music is about sound. Pleasant, awesome, brilliant sound is what songs are made of. Big and Rich deliver both Bigness and Richness to music. It’s as simple as that.