Honky Tonk'n

We've had some discussion at Scott's place on the genre of music produced by (and for) the Shiner Bock Nation crowd -- the relatively mindless, feel-good, honky-tonk stuff that is much in favor all over Texas these days. I like that stuff well enough, provided that it's done well, and I think Pat Green takes a lot of unfair criticism. But I will concede that some of the derivative acts are less than impressive.

I saw F.Co, whose music probably falls into that genre, a while back at the Firehouse, and enjoyed it for what it was. But William Michael Smith sounds kind of tired of it:

The King of Texas follows the commercially successful least-common-denominator formula developed in the Pat Green kitchen and scrupulously imitated by Cory Morrow and a jillion other neo-Texas country acts that are almost indistinguishable from one another in their kitschy taco'd straw hats. Those partial to music that doesn't dare even the slightest deviation from the original mashed potatoes recipe will probably catapult The King of Texas to the top of our Texas music charts with considerable haste. Yee-haw. Yeah, buddy.

Look, it's not the deepest stuff in the world. Smith makes his point. But why insult the people who actually like the music? You can write a music review without doing that. Good gawd, if you're writing reviews of Texas music for an alt-weekly, it's not exactly like YOU are a friggin' audiophile reviewing the latest classical release on period instruments from Trevor Pinnock!*** So drop the superior attitude already.

Geez.

(Update) William Michael Smith is the same person who tried to connect songwriter Max Stalling to existential novelist/thinker Albert Camus a while back. Without commenting on the songwriting, I must say that F.Co has a much stronger BAND sound than Max "Camus" Stalling. And sometimes (much of the time), that's all I want.

(05-22-03 Update) Mr. Whitlock moves the conversation much further along here....

*** Okay, it's rare that I can work a mention of Trevor Pinnock into a rant about Texas Music, but I've done it. For those not familiar with the man, he does some brilliant interpretations of classical music, on period instruments. I don't make any claims to know much about classical music, but I think of his approach to classical music as much like the Straussian approach to textual analysis (rightly or wrongly). Check his stuff out if you are classically inclined.

[Posted at 21:50 CST on 05/21/03] [Link]