Son Volt- Honkytonk- 3.5.13

[lovesick blues]

Who is Dow Jones, anyway?

[TANEYTOWN]

That was a really poor choice by Farrar^.

[Verbow]

Just heard "Hearts and Minds" in full on KDHX 88.1 in the Lou - wow, that is a damned good tune. Beautiful sounding recording too - sorta old timey.

[Hap]

Who is Dow Jones, anyway?

Um it loses all of its righteous indignation when you drop "the hell". You're better than this, lovesick.

[chogdog]

I could handle J. Farrar's bluesy tracks if they actually sounded like blues, instead of just sounding exactly like this song.

[Sandusky]

Jay's top 5 worst blues beatdowns:

Damn Shame
Fool King's Crown
Medication (psychedelic blues)
Gob Iron (all of it)
New Multitudes (most of it)

Blues and jazz are 2 genres I'll never get. Blues: same verse repeated ad nauseam with a play on the 4th line MY BABY GONE DOWN TO THE CROSSROADS/MY BABY GONE DOWN TO THE CROSSROADS/MY BABY GONE DOWN TO THE CROSSROADS/I SAY SHE GONE DOWN THERE TONIGHT. Jazz: endless improving and shit that goes on and on.

Also, Jay needs to ditch Mark Spencer unless he's on steel. Can't stand to hear all that noodling he does on Jay live solo shows. Yes, I GET you can play the guitar and know a bunch of scales. I've seen shows where that guy goes on for 15 minutes on a Jay song. Big NO to this! I want to hear "Tear-Stained Eye", not some 20 minute jazz noodling version of the song.

[Verbow]

Jay's top 5 worst blues beatdowns:

Damn Shame
Fool King's Crown

I can get with you on these - not the Jay I wanna hear.

Medication (psychedelic blues)
Gob Iron (all of it)
New Multitudes (most of it)

Can't get with you on these. Some of Gob Iron gets a little boring, but Medication is a great song. More Eastern influenced than blues. Dig this one bigtime.

[Blaze]

Medication falls under the other big Jay sin: the man's penchant to drone. Good lord it's a huge powerdown when this man drones on and on. Keep stretching those syllables out ther buddy. I need to catch a couple z's before the next one.

[Sandusky]

"Medication" is the beatdown of all beatdowns! I made it all the way through that song once. If Jay plays it live, I go take a pee. No time for this. Really not into his eastern influence songs--something else I blame Mark Spencer for. Sad country or wall of distortion rockers is good enough. Please, no blues or Ravi Shakar playing!

[Verbow]

at the abovers. I guess I never realized how despised that song is. I've always dug it, but I do tend to have a thing for Eastern tinged songs. FBFM.

[BearLaker]

Geez, some interesting bile in this thread. The Jay blues songs aren't up there as my all time favorites but they aren't that bad either. I too can't stand cookie cutter blues but Jay never goes completely down that road. One could make the argument that 10 sec news, too early, and mystifies me are 'bluesy' songs but most here would rate them as homeruns. Maybe the batting average goes down with this kind of stuff but its always been part of his thing or at least since the Mid-UT days. Re: Medication...There was a show at a NYC library a few years back with just Jay solo where he played an awesome version of Medication, can't find it anywhere of course. Other than that version, its not terribly interesting.

[Blaze]

Ha! The library? That's the perfect place for that boring song to be played!

[chogdog]

Fool King Crown and Damn Shame are by far the two worst songs Farrar has ever put out. They both sound like songs from when a mainstream pop country artist tries to do a bluesy type of country song. I don't think medications is a bad as those two it is just sort of a boring song that goes nowhere.

[Verbow]

Re: Medication...There was a show at a NYC library a few years back with just Jay solo where he played an awesome version of Medication, can't find it anywhere of course. Other than that version, its not terribly interesting.

Yes to this. I believe I remember that being posted on JF's message board at the time. Beautiful version. Its on the dual disc version of OATMOR.

[Blaze]

What is OATMOR?