Yep Roc
After celebrating 20 years of chicken flingin,’ toe-suckin’ geek rock, Chapel Hills’ Southern Culture on the Skids has forsaken original music for a cover album. Countrypolitan Favorites is the band’s twisted take on rock and country classics.
It’s strange to hear a female lead on the gritty CCR/Fogarty classic “Tombstone Shadow”, stranger still to hear it done bluegrass style. But it still has plenty of bite, courtesy of Rick Miller’s stinging guitar darting in and out, whining like a supersized mosquito.
The harmonies seem kind of strained on the upper registers on “Muswell Hillbillies” but that makes it even more down-homey — like Buck Owens channeling the Kinks run through SCOTS’ own skewed filter.
On the downside, T Rex’s “Life’s A Gas” doesn’t survive the transition to country, sounding like the worst of the lame ’70s pop crossover movement that ruined country music. Roger Miller’s “Engine Engine #9” is also an unwelcome reminder of that country/pop trash era.
But overall, Countrypolitan Favorites is a refreshing, original take on country classics with a few surprises, including a bluegrass version of “Happy Jack” that sounds more like the Partridge Family than The Who. Put this one on your must-have list.
This article appears in Feb 21-27, 2007.
