The Grabby Problem (and Mr. Velvet Hands)

A fan grabbing some ass. Looks like she’s married too. 

So you spend a small fortune on a concert ticket in the pit next to the stage — why? You won’t be far enough from the stage to get a good look at it; your entire view will be of the legs of the performers, and a severely telescoped look at their heads. Your view will be impeded by a forest of hands holding up phones. The sound will not be engineered to resonate well at this distance. You will not be able to sit down. You will be squashed. You do it for proximity: the opportunity to make physical contact with the star.

Everyone on the economic end of the concert experience knows this; it’s why the star will devote considerable time during the show to slapping hands with those in the front rows. Some will even sit down on the edge of the stage to sing a song or two, legs dangling perilously among the fans. Stages are designed to facilitate this, with their promontories stretching out in configurations allowing for maximum front-row exposure.

And if you weren’t quite close enough to shake hands during the show, or just missed by an inch? Then if you hang around afterwards, chances are the star will too, staying to sign autographs as the house lights come up and the crowd files out.

It’s one of the big perks of the ticket price. But has the expectation of physical contact become so de rigueur that it seems a right to those who pay for the privilege? If you’re an excited, perhaps tipsy lady with a powerful crush on the star, where do you draw the line between being satisfied with the momentary hand touch and a full-on grope? What if you have the opportunity, and could reach the denim-clad crown jewels, say — the bull’s-eye — would you? And if you’re the star, how close do you let the ladies get to your wedding tackle? The Inky Jukebox has seen phone footage of the crotches of singers so close to the lens that surely, surely, such an opportunistic grope would have been not only possible, but possibly invited.

Some entertainers have reached a point in their careers where this sort of thing — the grabby problem — is a known issue. Tim McGraw, for example. There was the famous incident in which his wife, Faith Hill, freaked out on a grabby fan after she groped him onstage. There was a mixed reaction: on the one hand, folks thought Faith was being a tad Mama Bear in going after the fan; on the other, folks wondered why Tim himself didn’t respond in the same way.

Skip forward a few years, and here we are again: some woman makes a grab for McGraw’s well-muscled leg (and more?) — but this time, his wife isn’t around to kick ass, so he swats the offending  intrusion away. The trouble is, he makes contact with the woman’s face instead of her hand. And all hell breaks loose. Did he intend to slap a bitch? Of course not. He’s in the middle of a song. Did he do what he felt was immediately necessary to extricate himself? Yes. Case closed. The woman, however, is gunning for revenge (or an apology and cash), for the humiliation. Let’s get this clear: she reached for him, first, not the other way around. Case closed.

Tim McGraw is a veteran performer; he never fails to tell the audience this, as if anyone in the crowd didn’t already know. He is fully aware of what the ladies want. They want to touch his crotch. They want a “Real Good Man.” They do not want “Truck Yeah” or “Mexicoma” to make a set list ever again.

The Inky Jukebox has witnessed McGraw interrupt a show to ask fans to remove their beers from the stage. He cited safety reasons. The fans at McGraw shows are humped so close to the stage upon which he struts that there is nowhere else for them to rest their beers.

Does this mean Tim McGraw must now push his stage back to create distance between him and his fans? Does it mean no more hand-slapping during shows? Or does it mean that people need to respect the basic social boundaries that prevent us from grabbing at what we want whether we're in the front row of a show or at the supermarket?

Sometimes, an iPhone crotch-cam close-up has to be enough to satisfy. Gentlemen: take heed. Except Luke Bryan. Dude already has that angle covered.

(And Justin Moore: don’t stop. OK, you play bigger venues now, and have three kids. But still.)

Whoa, lady! What you grabbin’ at? (Picture cropped.)

On The Beaten Path?

Get Your Ass Back Here, Justin Moore

The title of Justin Moore’s third album, Off The Beaten Path, suggests that he is taking his music away from the well-traveled road that artists take by the time they make their third album. Rather, on this album, Moore turns away from that backwoods path and veers strongly onto the interstate.

The overall impression is that this album was given a massive infusion of money in the form of studio time and additional musicians, making for a slicker, more highly produced sound. Headphones will confirm that backing vocals lend weight to choruses, and that high-end guitar soloing tips each song into a complex audio experience.

The other thing any Moore fan will notice is that this album leans heavily on ballads and girl-friendly songs. Sure, there is a smattering of good ole boy in there, but it feels very tame compared to the kind of material Moore was using to identify himself on his first album.

The obvious singles — “Point At You,” “Lettin’ The Night Roll,” and “One Dirt Road” — are buoyed by a great duet with Miranda Lambert (“Old Habits”) which sounds like an old country classic. The Inky Jukebox would like to see “This Kind of Town” highlighted.

The Inky Jukebox went for the Deluxe version (and who wouldn’t?), which features two songs which ought to be on any non-deluxe version: “Big Ass Headache,” and the Charlie Daniels duet, “For Some Ol’ Redneck Reason,” but “Field Fulla Hillbillies” is the weakest Moore song we’ve heard, certainly in terms of its lyricism.

The low point on this album comes in the form of a song which really should have been an extra — preferably a non-numbered final track. “I’d Want It To Be Yours” is an ode to luscious buttocks, which is cute, but only the first couple of times you hear it. Thereafter, it sounds like a gimmick — something which is not helped by the big production it gets on the record. When The Inky Jukebox first heard it, it was delivered by Moore, standing alone with his guitar on a small stage — and in that setting, it worked. But it’s a throwaway song that sounds like it takes itself too seriously once all the instruments are added. It’s the one song that immediately gets the FF treatment when it comes on.

The Inky Jukebox has a special place for Justin Moore, and has spent a lot of time with this album, prior to writing this late review. There’s plenty to like about this record. We’re glad that he is getting the recognition that he deserves — he certainly works his ass off for it. But there remains a niggling fear that he’ll get swept up in the mainstream and drown. Justin Moore can sing. He can really, really sing. This is drowned out with a huge production that feels like every note has been tweaked in a machine.

The Inky Jukebox would like to thank the person who took and posted this photo. 

Scale it back and simplify. Please. 

Justin Moore: Finger-Lickin’ Good

Heinz Field, Pittsburgh, September 1^st 2013

Justin Moore

“I want you to get your money’s worth,” Justin Moore joked to the crowd packed around the tiny stage outside Heinz Stadium’s scoreboard on Sunday night. Given that the concert was free, he added “You get what you pay for though, so I could have sucked!” The hoards laughed — it was funny because The Inky Jukebox can attest that his performance as part of the annual Rib Festival did not suck. Far from it: it was finger-lickin’, lip-smackin’ good.

Billed by the festival as a one-hour set, Moore in fact played for two. That’s value for money right there. And if you arrived on the scene during the set changeover (Drew Baldridge opened), you could snag a spot right up to the stage. By the time he came on (earlier than scheduled), it was filled with die-hard fans, only a few of which appeared to be from the actual country. 

If this had been a Burgettstown show, that would have been a very different demographic. Still, they were all boozed up and happy, crowd surfing and generally singing and hollering along to every single word. Hey — it was a free show on the banks of the Ohio on a hot summer night; parking was cheap, Heinz Field’s Steeler pavilion was open to the public, there was a vast array of world-class ribs available a few hundred feet away, and they came double-fisting big cans of beer.

From the stage the band’s view was the interior of a lit-up Heinz Field to one side and the downtown Pittsburgh skyline reflecting in the water to the other. Moore and the band delivered a set packed full of his hits, along with the crowd pleasers (“I Can Kick Your Ass”). 

He threw in some Randy Houser and Josh Thompson to advertize his upcoming tour, where they will be opening for him. He saved “Small Town USA” until the end, a sentimental favorite, after which the crowd gave a deafening chant — Justin…Justin…Justin, which morphed into USA…USA…USA. It was a moving moment; he hung his hat on his mic stand and crouched on the stage fighting back tears.

This intimate connection was furthered by Moore’s ad-libbing repartee with the crowd throughout his show. To the absolute delight of everyone, he threw in an acoustic version of “Grandpa,” which hadn’t been on the set list, but was requested at a meet-and-greet. 

This kind of interaction with his core base is what builds the kind of serious loyalty that fuels a long career.

In a twist from a regular encore (The Inky Jukebox had hoped and prayed for “Outlaw Like Me”), Moore came back out clad in a Steelers cap instead of his signature cowboy hat, alone, with an acoustic guitar, and proceeded to give a two-song preview of as-yet unheard songs from his upcoming album. They were great, especially “One Dirt Road,” which he indicated would be his next single. He peppered this with an impromptu medley of covers.

In case anyone has looked up which songs appear on the new album, The Inky Jukebox can reveal that “I'd Want It To Be Yours” is a humorous song about women’s bottoms. He literally played his way off the stage, spent.

“You get what you pay for,” he’d quipped earlier. We did: it was priceless.

Off The Beaten Path comes out September 17.

All Praise Eric Church and Justin Moore

Sinners Like Us: The Blood, Sweat and Beers Tour, 

Pittsburgh Sept 15, 2012

Justin Moore appreciates the crowd

Last night in Pittsburgh, Eric Church and Justin Moore, country music’s new bad boy vanguard, put on a master class in kicking ass. If the 13,000 capacity crowd wanted their faces rocked off with hit-after-blistering-hit, that’s exactly what they got. Apart from one girl I could see (more on her here), every single person there was a devotee of the kind of hard-living, hard-partying, leave-your-guts-on-the-floor lifestyle preached by these two ministers of Outlawism. If you remove the crutch the R leans upon, you’d be left with EPIC CHURCH, which is what the CONSOL Energy Arena turned into — one big revival tent. In case you didn’t know that’s what you’d signed up for when you bought a ticket (more on that here), then the High Priest made it clear in his opening song, “Country Music Jesus.” And boy, if you had any doubts that American music was all out of soul, then your soul was saved.

Let’s start with Justin Moore, which is always a good idea any time of day. The only thing that differentiated him from the “main act” was that his set was shorter. It needn’t have been; he could just as easily have rolled on through both his albums in their entirety and the crowd would still have not wanted him to leave the stage. Instead, he was limited to a roll-call of his singles (all hits), plus the crowd-pleaser “I Could Kick Your Ass,” which he’ll never be able to leave out of a set list for the rest of his career. The crowd belted along to every single word, sometimes drowning him out — except for those times when he switched into high gear and delivered one of his signature upper-range long notes, which are enough to prove that he’s the best male singer in country music. Perhaps that’s his real gift: it’s not just that he has the song, the look, and the attitude: dude’s got a pair of lungs and ability to deliver melody like no-one else.

This here's in a club, but you get the idea

He also knows how to work a crowd. It’s been a few years (alas) since The Inky Jukebox saw him, and he had not yet affixed his star the firmament. With some hard time touring tucked in his belt, he’s got it down to a fine art. The Inky Jukebox would have liked there to be more time in his set to deliver some of his ballads (“Like There’s No Tomorrow,” “Flyin’ Down a Back Road,” and “Outlaws Like Me” would have been nice), but we understand that when you open for someone else, your job is to whip the crowd into a frenzy with up-tempo numbers. (For the record, why did they release “Till My Last Day,” a bit of an ode to cliché as his next single instead of “Outlaws Like Me,” which is transcendently awesome?)

Moore’s covers are so good it makes you wish he’d release an album of them; his delivery of “With A Little Help From My Friends” was a perfect example of this done right — hearing a song you know inside out as if for the very first, and best, time.

Justin Moore demonstrates why he's the best singer in country music

Anyone who’s seen Eric Church before knows that when you hear the thomping strains of Clutch’s “Electric Worry” come over the PA system, he’s about to take the stage. It’s a good intro — a perfect blend of old-time stomp and metal shred, just the sort of thing Church’s band excels at.

Eric Church wants you to know that he doesn’t give a shit, a damn, or a single solitary fuck about, as he put it, “anything that’s happening outside this arena.” It’s that attitude that both sets him apart from the rest of the country pack, yet ties him to it, in the grand tradition of the old-school stars he worships. He’s unapologetic about pretty much everything he does on stage, which is a good thing. When he thumps his chest or pumps his fist in the air or gives the crowd a wide-mouthed howl, you know he means it, dammit. Eric Church can do this because Eric Church has the balls to back it up with pure talent. Does he need the bank of flamethrowers behind him, letting off great rips of fire to punctuate choruses? Of course not. But he knows this is a magic show-cum-sermon, and that tricks that make it seem the devil is biting at your heels are all part of the act.

Pyromania

As far as stage shows go, it’s a treat to see him finally design his own, after playing the opener for so long. The revolving backdrop of huge painted curtains doesn’t feel out of place alongside a forest of spotlights bursting from the stage, and the billowing clouds of thick smoke that illustrate “Smoke A Little Smoke” seem less a gimmick than an in-joke. He swigs his Jack Daniels from a red Solo cup just like you expect him to, and you hold on of your boots in the air like leather lighters when he sings his peon to them, “These Boots.”

See the crowd wave their boots

The real lighters are few and far between these days; during the closer, “Springsteen,” he asks the crowd to flash their cell phones instead. Sure enough, the arena becomes a twinkling universe of screens that is a sight to behold, and you’re in no danger of getting your hair or the brim of your hat singed.

In getting to call his own shots, Church delivers many things he believes in, including that whole albums deserved to be played in their entirety. This is easy for him to do, given that none of his albums contains a single fluff song. He spread every song off Chief out over the show, with liberal helpings from Carolina and Sinners Like Me along the way. It doesn’t matter if only a handful were ever singles; such are Church’s records that every song feels like it must have been a hit you sang to on the radio.

Acoustic brilliance: sing along now, y'all

Half way through, the black curtain came down on the stage, and he gave the crowd a mini, stripped down acoustic set that recalled (for The Inky Jukebox, at least) the way early YouTube videos captured him giving impromptu performances sitting on tailgates in parking lots. 

Eric Church: 2009 (parking lots)

Just the man and his guitar and a song — that’s all he needed, and all he still needs. He is a good enough player to make it sounds like three guitars at once — his notes and riffs sparkly and rhythmic at the same time. You know you’re on to something good when everything else can be peeled back to the bare bones.

Eric Church: 2012 (arenas)

This is not to say that the full-on experience of the band is less satisfying: he says he “likes his country rocking / how ‘bout you?” and the answer’s an emphatic yes. At times you could be forgiven for thinking you’d wondered into a hard rock or metal show — that’s how loud they crunch and shred, fairly melting your face off in the process.

The show draws to a close with the heartfelt “Springsteen,” during which he breaks into a countrified “Born To Run,” to everyone’s delight. Behind him, a giant American flag hangs, an unsubtle notice that this country has a new hero troubadour to worship. He stood for a long time after the rest of the band left the stage, looking out at his disciples cheering. What a view he must have had.

SET LISTS (in no particular order)

Justin Moore

Guns

How I Got To Be This Way

Small Town USA

Backwoods

I Could Kick Your Ass

Hank It

Bait A Hook

Till My Last Day

If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away

Eric Church

Creepin

Drink In My Hand

Hungover And Hard Up

Homeboy

Country Music Jesus

Jack Daniels

Springsteen

I’m Getting’ Stoned

Over When It’s Over

Lotta Boot Left To Fill

Carolina

Smoke A Little Smoke

Hell On The Heart

Before She Does

Sinners Like Me

How ‘Bout You

These Boots

Guys Like Me

Pledge Allegiance To The Hag

Justin Moore Livestream

Sweet Honey

The Inky Jukebox can die happy (in another 50 years or so) having heard her name pass between Justin Moore’s lips in today’s livestream to promote / celebrate the release of Outlaws Like Me. The questions (and his answers, paraphrased) follow:

Q: Where do you get your shirts?

A: I have no idea. I wear whatever my stylist hands me. Or my wife.

Hang on a minute: a stylist? WTF? Other than the hat (same every time), jeans (wranglers), belt (same personalized one every time), boots (same), all this stylist does is pick out a shirt! Shall we go with a plaid one or the denim one? Well, he or she (or Kate) has a good eye for the sort of shirt that makes girls swoon. Hmmm. The Inky Jukebox wants this job. (Justin Moore, call me.)

Q: We think you should release a live acoustic album.

A: Honey, I’m not that good a guitar player, but thank you.

To be honest, The Inky Jukebox knows Justin Moore isn’t the world’s best geetar player, but the sound on the livestream with Roger playing along was really ace. Seriously, the acoustic versions highlighted your great voice and delivery. Think about it. Hang on — he called me “Honey!” (Pumps fists in victory salute.)

Q: What is the hardest part of recording in a studio?”

A: It’s not all that hard; in fact, it’s easy if you can sing.

This is exactly what The Inky Jukebox wanted to hear: because when Justin Moore sings, it sounds like he is giving it his all, as if in a recording studio. Awesome.

The Inky Jukebox would like to thank Justin Moore and his sidekick Roger for taking the time to interact live with fans (there were a LOT logged on), playing great, and picking The Inky Jukebox’s questions. And for calling me Honey :-) 

Watch live streaming video from justinmoore at livestream.com

Moore, Please

Justin Moore: God Bless Outlaws Like Him

When Justin Moore poses the request that "God bless outlaws like me" on his second album to be released June 21, 2011, he touches perhaps unwittingly, upon a topic that has laid at the intersection of theology and jurisprudence since men wore togas and the only fraternity they belonged to had nothing whatsoever to do with higher education.

To be an outlaw, in the original sense of the word, was to exist outside the law; to be cast out of society to the extent that anyone could hunt you down and kill you with the state (and Church’s) OK. Anyone harboring an outlaw was guilty of aiding and abetting and could be similarly punished, either in the now or the sweet thereafter.  Outlawism was no joke; now, we associate the word (as, The Inky Jukebox suspects, does Justin Moore) with a kind of Wild West figure who eschewed silly laws to live a life of natural, God-given moral and ethical boundaries — but throughout most of recorded history to be declared an outlaw was to be well and truly fucked.

Hence the tricky theological problem: by imploring God’s blessing directly upon an outlaw (who has, by definition been excommunicated from the Church – and therefore subject to being hunted like an animal), the intercessor risks being outlawed themselves. Of course, Justin Moore gets around this problem like a genius: he asks God’s blessing upon himself, thereby saving his friends.

This is just as well, because he put his band mates through some funny-ass promotional videos in the weeks leading up to the album’s June 21 release.

The Inky Jukebox has been waiting for Justin Moore’s sophomore album for a long time. Well, ever since his self-titled first album came out two years ago. We were ardently hoping that this new record would be half as good, and are delighted to say that it more than lives up to the high expectations we had. In interviews, Moore delivers the same thing you hear again and again from artists doing promotional junkets: this album has something new for the fans / something for everyone; it’s even more country than the last record; I’m really proud of it, etc. This made The Inky Jukebox nervous to be honest. One of the things that has surprised us the most is that the songs themselves, when heard in their entirety, are better than the snippets released so far suggest they will be. Is it a “better” record than his first? No: it is absolutely as good, which is saying something, because The Inky Jukebox plays it more than any other.

Each one of these 13 songs is a winner. They draw upon a similar set of topics that defined the first album, any of which will be familiar to any country fan; only now, Moore can and does write about being Justin Moore, Nashville Star, rather than Justin Moore, Regular Joe. Whereas before he wrote about Hanking It, opening for Hank Williams Jr. in Hershey PA and catching his show from out in the crowd, now he can sing about shooting the bull with Bocephus before he climbs up on his jet. He even has the cajones to reference his own celebrity when he says that “they love it down in small town USA” in “If You Don’t Like My Twang.” Will we forgive him? Hells yes: the guy’s got “Guns.”

Speaking of which, The Inky Jukebox loves that Moore does not shy away from singing about the Second Amendment (or his willingness to kick your ass), a move that has earned him a place in the NRACountry firmament. (Just don’t break into his house, y’all.)

The Inky Jukebox also likes it when Moore sexes it up, something he seems wont to do in the bed of his truck, if you go by the lyrics of the two love ballads “Like There’s No Tomorrow” and “Bed of My Chevy.” Both involve some tailgate loving under the stars, though the earlier song’s raunchier lyric takes us further into that fantasy than the tamer “Bed Of My Chevy.”

Moore saves the best for last, however, and is rightly proud of having written a very fine song in the title track, “Outlaws Like Me.” The album is worth buying for the first verse alone, which makes a simple and plain-spoken lyric out of doing what country writers do best: bending words like notes to fit their needs.

I’ve been a rough houser

A good time sleep arounder

A straight up whiskey pounder

Til I don’t know my name

I’ve been a church goer

A front pew Bible holder

A cry on my  Mama’s shoulder

When she saw me change

But each day’s a choice of which one I’m gonna be

God bless outlaws like me

Which brings us inexorably back to our opening dilemma: what is an outlaw, and is Justin Moore really one? According to him, an outlaw is someone who can’t decide what sort of man he’s going to be from one day to the next, like a man being slapped on both cheeks by the angel and devil riding each shoulder. In this case, his plea to the Almighty is for constancy, consistency, and commitment.

The Inky Jukebox thinks that if this album is any indication, his prayer has been answered by a deity who knows a good thing when he hears it and administers blessings accordingly.

Buy this album NOW.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is his livestream from New York's Central Park from June 20th 2011.
There will be live music June 21st at 4 pm.

Watch live streaming video from justinmoore at livestream.com

Tour Bus Chew-Out

It's Where The Magic Happens, Y'all

In the lead-up to the release of Justin Moore's new album, Outlaws Like Me, The Valory Music Company are giving us an insight into what really goes down in one of those behemoth tour busses. In today's installment, we see the BossMan give his band a good talking-to about certain standards that have slipped of late....

To introduce folks to their new star-in-the-making when his first record came out, his label released a similar set of spoof videos that gave us a backwoods (a deep, deep backwoods) version of Cribs, in which Moore shows us around his new home (hunting shack).

You really need to watch all of these to fully appreciate the toilet and shower scenes.


The Inky Jukebox thinks Brad Paisley, Country's current comedy king, has a rival, don't you?

A One-Man Garage Band

"Outlaws Like Me" Acoustic

Is this Justin Moore's own garage? There are trophies against the back wall, y'all.

Just posted: Justin Moore's sublime "Outlaws Like Me." The Inky Jukebox thanks The Valory Music Co. for making this available. It is the sort of thing that builds and rewards fans.

Justin Moore Announces Presale

Got Ammo?

At long last! Here's a place to read a decent bio and get to hear a preview of the tracks off Moore's forthcoming album, Outlaws Like Me.

Hearing a studio version of a song you've only ever heard live is always tricky; the title track is far more produced and layered than The Inky Jukebox is used to, and we're not sure about the pause you can hear in the opening on this demo.

Still, folks have been waiting for "Guns" for a long long time: on June 21, this love song to the Second Amendment will be available to all!

Ain't He Cute?

Five Questions for Justin Moore

From this interview, you would never guess what Justin Moore is like on stage. Here, he comes across as an articulate, careful, soft-spoken gentle soul who'd go weak at having to address a crowd. This is not so. On sage, he is a ferocious, swaggering man-beast singing the bollocks out of songs to do with guns, girls and God.

Here are The Inky Jukebox's five questions for Justin Moore:

1) When did you first realize you could sing better than your peers, and where did you practice?

2) Which artists have had the most influence on your style?

3) What pre-show rituals do you have, and how do you combat nerves?

4) Who would like most like to do a duet with?

5) And finally, what makes you grin like that?

Justin Moore Plays Brown Chicken, Brown Cow

Shameless Beefcake 

In order to whip his fans into a pre-album-drop frenzy, Justin Moore’s peeps played a little show-and-tell on facebook. Here, let them explain it:

Though most of the required 288,800 fans approved of the ploy, some were a tad piqued about being made to feel like punters at a titty bar with wads of singles in their grubby hands. To these people The Inky Jukebox says: Purleese. If you want your music unsullied by visuals, stop reading facebook fan pages and bust out your radio. You know, it’s the thing with the dials gathering dust in your basement.

A mere 5 hours later, we were rewarded with this:

 Which was very popular indeed.

As we approach the June 21^st release date, will Justin be unbuttoning his shirt for us? If we pre-order, can he please unbuckle his jeans?

Cheers!

Justin Moore: Outlaws Like Him

The Complete Package

(that’s the truth)

It is very tempting to just dive in and say this is a reference to Justin Moore’s midsection (because Holy Crap! Ladies, you know what I’m talking about). Is there another young buck in Country Music who wears the regulation outfit so well? From his hat to his unbuttoned shirt to his belt buckle to his boots, Mr. Moore knows from swagger.

But The Inky Jukebox will resist and talk about what Justin Moore brings to the table in terms of his overall talent as a singer-songwriter instead. His second album, Outlaws Like Me is due out June 21, so this might seem a bit premature. Never mind. Ever since footage of Moore singing the title track surfaced on YouTube, The Inky Jukebox has been blown away by the maturity it reveals about his ability to pen a classic. Not only does it deliver a lyric that is spare while telling a large story, but it allows Moore to showcase his powerful vocal gifts. He claims it’s the song he’s proudest to have written, and he should be.

I’ve been a roughhouser

A good-time sleep-arounder

A straight-up whiskey pounder

Till I don’t know my name

I’ve been a church-goer

A front pew Bible holder

I cried on my Mama’s shoulder

When she saw me change

Each day’s a choice

Which one I’m gonna be

So God Bless Outlaws like me

As far as your standard Country theme goes, it hits all the right notes: it is a confessional, but about topics and behaviors that his audience not only recognizes but lauds. By claiming to be an Outlaw, he’s stepping up to the plate as a man. It’s a masculine song that makes room for tenderness — when he says of his saint/sinner personality “I go back and forth between ‘em / That’s the truth” he sounds like he really means it because of the way he delivers the line, softly, as an aside. This sets him up for being able to take it up a notch to hit the emotional center of the song with real grit and power. The real excitement in this song comes at the end when Moore slays a long note that when he sings it, requires him to open his whole chest up and fling his arms wide, demonstrating for those who might not know that he has the performance chops to match the songs.

When The Inky Jukebox learned that this song was going to anchor the new album, we were very pleased that The Valory Music Co. is throwing their weight behind him by making smart choices. We hope that the recorded version keeps it as simple as the live shows, where Moore is accompanied by a piano and nothing else. The first release from it, “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away” is probably not his strongest offering, being a bit of a clichéd nostalgia-fest, but it allows for the possibility of “Outlaws Like Me” the song being released to coincide with the album and propelling what could be an absolutely massive summer hit.

The Inky Jukebox predicts that this song will make folks sit up and pay attention to this down-home “simple American man / with a Southern drawl” who says what he means and means what he says.

And wears his jeans real tight. 

Justin Moore: He Can Kick Your Ass

Why I like Justin Moore

(American-born simple man with a Southern drawl)

At first you might think dude’s just a big redneck with swagger with an Arkansas accent so thick you could drive a truck across it who sings about all the usual topics as if he’s checking them off some “How To Be A Hick” list. I love my small town? Check. I own guns? Check. I fuck my girl in my pickup truck? Check. I could kick your ass? Check.

He looks the part, too: handsome, strong-jawed face set off by his cream colored hat; lean, broad shoulders whose muscles teach a shirt what a shirt should be (usually open to the third snap); slim hips accentuated by a big belt buckle whose purpose appears not to be to hold his jeans up but to draw your eye to his crotch; boots.

But it’s what he does with all this that makes Justin Moore compelling. He can move in such a way as to ooze masculinity onstage, and knows, unlike a lot of his country contemporaries, to open out his arms when he sings (calling the audience in and giving his ribcage room to deliver the big notes). 

It’s the kind of stage prowl that has traditionally made women wet their panties since the dawn of rock ‘n roll, and it looks like he comes by it naturally. It’s not something you can see in his videos, where he’s usually standing in one spot singing to camera – but you can see it in abundance when he’s in some small smoky club or treading an amphitheater’s boards in YouTube clips. I saw him do his thing on a giant stage from a hillside this summer, and though he was as small as an ant, every nuance of his movement came across loud and clear.

I know I started off with what a sex god he is, but the real reason I like Justin Moore is that he can sing the living shit out a song, and he writes them too. They are packed full of gusto and melody, and it seems that the set he’s got lined up for his second album push the strengths of his first batch in exciting ways. Take “Outlaws Like Me,” for instance: it’s a ballad backed only with piano, yet you don’t really realize that’s all it is until the end because the sound is so rich. Any guy who can deliver that strong a vocal performance against a few tinkling keys has some skill and the balls to back it up.

I like seeing the small-club sets you can find scattered all over YouTube, because that feels like his natural comfort spot, close to the crowd — but check out his radio performances too, where he’s just popping out his songs on cue while strumming an acoustic guitar. Look at how he delivers "I Could Kick Your Ass" when he's doing it in an office to promote his record HERE, and then again to a crowd once he's made a hit out of it HERE. That's the performer I'm talking about. Again: anyone who can pull off this sort of on the spot, unaccompanied, unaffected singing (always in time; always on key) is a winner in my book. He covers the classics the way you want them covered: true to a fault. Check out “Bad Company.”

I slowly fell in love with his first big hit, “Small Town USA” not because it was yet another paean to God-fearing regionalism that defines so many of the small-town songs, but because despite the cliché of the lyric, I found myself signing along to it loud and hearty every time it came on my radio. I am a girl who looks ridiculous signing and gesticulating to “I Could Kick Your Ass,” but it’s glorious to sing. Same thing with his less blustery song, “Grandpa.” His homage to good old boy romance, “Like There’s No Tomorrow” is about as sexy as it gets. “Get in a rhythm / Nobody’s near and listening” my ass. We're listening. (Especially to that last note -- wow.)

He’s signed to an imprint of Big Machine records (The Valory Music Co.), the label who hit the jackpot with Taylor Swift. They seem to be an outfit that encourages big-hook songs of the kind that Moore excels in delivering.

His debut, self-titled record, Justin Moore, does not have a weak song on it, and was the album that got the most play in my house this year. His next album (The Boot?) is the one I most anticipate arriving in 2011. 

Justin Moore's Website