CAPSULE CORRAL: An occasional column rounding up various and sundry indie roots, pop, folk, and rock detritus; also known as "so many records, so little time"

This edition by Luke Torn

JASON BOLAND & THE STRAGGLERS
Somewhere in the Middle (Smith Entertainment)
As neo-Waylon records go, you could do a lot worse than Somewhere in the Middle, the fourth album by Texan-by-way-of-Oklahoma boy Jason Boland. Expect bar-band rockin' honky-tonk that worships at the feet of Jennings, Ray Wylie, Billy Joe, and David Allan. Lloyd Maines produces.

BOWMAN
Living the Dream (http://www.bowmanband.com)
Promising young Boston guitar rocker with a good sense of dynamics, but the songs seldom rise above middling meat-and-potatoes. A good start, though, and the kind of thing that might sound good out of the blue on radio.

COWBOY JACK CLEMENT
Guess Things Happen That Way (DualTone)
A tantalizing postcard from one of music's legendary mavericks, this years-in-the-making record is only Clement's second-ever solo outing. (His first was the low-key, 1978 masterpiece All I Ever Wanted To Do in Life.) From his pioneering Sun Records productions with Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis to similar earthshaking collaborations with everyone from Waylon Jennings to U2, Clement has sparked several generations of genius to their best work. Guess Things Happen That Way is a playful, affectionate collection, with heartfelt '50s-type country balladry ("Dreaming My Dreams With You") bumping up against novelty and Sun remakes. Unpretentious, steeped in American lore (see "Trapped in an Old Country Song"), and with cameos by the Man in Black, it's inconspicuously essential.

EMERSON DRIVE
What If? (Dreamworks)
Blech! Is this what passes for emotionally connected country pop on the charts these days? From its overblown, 80s-style drum tracks to singer Brad Mates' bloated, overwrought vocals, to, of course, rhyming pain and rain right off the bat, with cracks in all the right places, this is one of the saddest records I’ve laid ears to in quite awhile. Producer: Richard Marx.

THE GASKETS
Big Fun (Aquarium Records)
Here we find some big dreamers in the smirk-rock field, a blues for the 21st century called “I Don’t Have to Work Tomorrow (Woo Hoo).” “Sitting in my cubicle at work/Why can’t I have an office with some walls?” goes a sample lyric. Of course, it’s played for grins and a kind of Ween-ish irony. But the truth that lies under the surface is that in America circa 2004, this may be as grand as some dreams get.

HAWK
Princess America (New Garden Music)
With a suitably ragged wall of raging guitars, and singer/writer Dave Hawkins' earnest vocals, Princess America is a finely chiseled throwback to '80s guitar band land, when behemoths like the Del-Lords and Dream Syndicate roamed the earth. The songs concentrate on holding your ground in a world gone mad, with the ballad "Innocence" emerging as a centerpiece of sorts, and the rumbling "The Secret," a call to arms, a clear highlight.

THE HOYLE BROTHERS
Back to the Door (Loose Booty)
Solid no-frills nouveau honky-tonk, of the Derailers/Wayne Hancock stripe, from this Chicago outfit. Alternating dance floor shuffles with trucker tunes, bar-room laments with neo-Bakersfield rockers, they've got the template down cold.

J-HENRY
Another Long Day (Rockview Records)
Jersey-ite J-Henry provides a swift kick to the blue collar east-coast singer/songwriter genre on Another Long Day, produced by Anthony Krizan of Spin Doctors fame. Fans of '70s-era Springsteen, Seger, Southside, and Cougar should get on the bus now. The rest of us may have to wait until the Sopranos nick a riff or two on an upcoming episode.

DAVID LEVIN
Stepping on my Hat (Day Eleven)
Moderately interesting Minnesota singer/songwriter, whose vocal timber has led many a reviewer to tag him as the reincarnation of rock 'n' roll Sting. Levin does know his way around an early MTV-ish type hook, though, and a few, like "We're Okay, for Humans," turn brooding meditations into something special.

MAC MARTIN & THE DIXIE TRAVELERS
Travelin' On (Copper Creek)
Beautiful old-style bluegrass effort, a reissue from 1978, from one of the masters. It takes guts to do a bluegrass-style "Down South in New Orleans," and Pittsburgher Martin pulls it off beautifully; meanwhile the fiddle driven traditional "Black Eyed Susie" glides along with a spirited momentum. Martin's a still fine artist, whose extensive career deserves a reexamination in light of bluegrass's popular resurgence. (Luke Torn)

THE PEELERS
Thegetdownsyndrome (Orange)
With the rhythmic whomp of a semi clipping the guardrails and sloppy drunk vocals from the Sid Vicious school of punk rock, Chicago quintet the Peelers mine familiar bar band territory, 21st century style. Produced in full muddy splendor by onetime Big Boy Tim Kerr, this record nicely approximates a sweaty night in the clubs, Pabst Blue Ribbon in hand. No great shakes, but, as long as the beer is flowing and the dance floor’s shakin’, certainly nothing to hang their heads about. (Luke Torn)

CURTIS POTTER
Them Old Honky Tonks (Heart of Texas Records)
Sturdy country songs, swathed in pedal steel, many set to shuffling rhythms ala Ray Price's archetype. A successful throwback to the kind of country records made in the years before countrypolitan and pop crossover altered the country landscape. (Luke Torn)

RECKLESS KELLY
Wicked Twisted Road (Sugar Hill)
Cast-iron alt-country stalwarts make what sounds like their career record, with a broad range of musical styles and thoughtful songs; still it sounds like alt-country by numbers, with rote clichéd lyrics and see-through swagger. (Luke Torn)

SHURMAN
Jubilee (Vanguard)
Chunky, twangy meat-and-potatoes country-rock from this LA quartet. With their obligatory band-hits-the-road song ("Petty Song"), and plenty of blazing guitars, they catch fire just often enough to warrant repeated listening, but don't expect much in the way of originality in sound or attitude. (Luke Torn)

STATUESQUE
Choir Above Fire Below (125 Records)
Yep, this one almost slipped through the cracks, as it's a late 2004 release. Maybe that's because it takes awhile for Stephen Manning's dense, lyrical throwdown to sink in. Manning's one-man-band, Statuesque, finds the artist playing guitar, bass, keyboard, and drums, a rudimentary but rocking jangly, guitar-pop backdrop for broadsides of every stripe. My favorite is "The Audition," which rails on the emptiness of the pop machine in general, but there's plenty the chew on throughout the baker's dozen appearing on Choir Above. Lovers of Britpop, from the Kinks to Charlatans to Television Personalities to eccentrics like Roy Harper and Robyn Hitchcock, will love this stuff. (Luke Torn)

BILLY BOB THORNTON
The Edge Of The World (BMG)
The spirit is willing, the soul is present, and lord knows, the big guns—from Marty Stuart to Barry Beckett to Daniel Lanois to the late, great Warren Zevon—are all present for this singer/songwriter genre exercise. You can easily hear how the players want this to work. But Thornton, despite a valliant attempt, just doesn’t have the songs, and moreover, doesn’t have the voice to carry the day. From the timeworn R&B groove of “Everybody Lies” to random attempts at anthemtry—i.e., “The Desperate One”—Thornton repeatedly grasps at that “big” gesture, and comes up with a beautiful sounding, but ultimately empty record. I could see someone like Delbert McClinton or Norah Jones mining the contents for album filler, though. Ouch factor: a truly horrific cover of Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’.” (Luke Torn)

STEVE TURNER AND HIS BAD IDEAS
s/t (Roslyn)
The ex-Mudhoney guitarist continues his hard left turn from the punk rock trenches with a second album of thoughtful, frustrated country weepers and sober folk/rock (except for a bit of rave-up--"Zero on the Scale"). Pitched somewhere between old-timey hootenanny (see a dark cover of Hoyt Axton's standard "Greenback Dollar") and modern-day slacker roots (cf. Danny Barnes or Mark Olson), it's the kind of record that, admirably, already stands out of time, and will sound even more so as the years fly by. (Time: 30:39.) (Luke Torn)

WATERSHED
The Fourth of July (Idol)
Reasonable pop/punk effort from Dallas group. Hooks abound, anthemry is attempted, and even the lyrics mix in a few adolescent insights among the miscellaneous ouches. Pleasantly generic. (Luke Torn)

SASHA ZAND
Spoke to the Moment (Skips Records)
Weird little time tip back to the mid-80s here with this NYC singer/songwriter. Zand’s shimmering melodies (lots of chunky acoustic guitar), folk/rock two generations removed, sounds like lots of records from that period—for example, Lloyd Cole & the Commotions’ Rattlesnakes. Drummer Matt Johnson, who played in Jeff Buckley’s band, pitches in on this brief EP, which, just to prove its point, revisits R.E.M.’s stellar early signature song, “So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry).” (Luke Torn)

REISSUES

JOHN SIMON
John Simon's Album (Water)
Here's a surprise arrival on CD--producer extraordinaire and longtime Band confidante John Simon's debut CD. Now, if you are a hardcore Band completist, you'll know this record for its handful of contributions by Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson, plus a 1970 vintage co-write by Robbie Robertson on "Davey's on the Road Again." The latter, with its stately horn arrangement and relaxed, jazzy melody, is a lugubrious character study that's a kind of whimsical second cousin to some of the songs found on The Band's Stage Fright. Overall, though, Simon's record is a bucolic, eccentric beauty, with plenty of vintage pop (Hoagy Carmichael is a major influence) and West Coast jazz inflections refracted through hippie awareness--in its way a studio creation as ambitious as more celebrated and mythologized efforts by the Beach Boys, i.e., Smile, or later Steely Dan efforts. An unjustly forgotten sonic treat, with contributions by members of Fanny, Derek & the Dominoes, as well as Leon Russell and guitarist supreme Eddie Hinton, this album is deserving of a resurrection.

TONY JOE WHITE
Homemade Ice Cream (DBK Works)
The third of three early '70s studio platters for Warner Brothers, the Tom Dowd-produced Homemade Ice Cream is a curious, mixed bag of a record from the king of swamp rock. With Muscle Shoals players like guitarist Reggie Young and keyboardist David Briggs on board, White traverses spooky downbeat blues, laidback-to-the-point-of-sleep soul weepers, and middling folk/rock, only plying his trademark backwoods R&B on a couple of tracks. The funky "No News Is Good News" shows signs of life, and the down-n-dirty blues of "Did Somebody Make a Fool of You" is White at his brooding best. His cult, though, will gravitate to "Saturday Night in Oak Grove, Louisiana" and "Backwoods Preacher Man," which hew closer to White's swampy strengths.

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