18 February 2001

Groobees

We caught the Groobees at the Mucky Duck last night, and they put on a really nice show. They are a really talented group with such great range that it's hard to peg them as anything but that odd genre known as "Americana" or maybe "Texas Music." Alt-country doesn't really fit these guys, because they are broader than that -- with some songs that have almost a rhythm and blues feel, some with a Mary Chapin-Carpenter Zydeco-bayou sound, some with a resemblance to 10,000 Maniacs, and some with a good strong country-steel guitar sound to them. All the poor saps that go to see them because they wrote the original version of "Wide Open Spaces" (a great song when done by them) made famous by the Dixie Chicks (or, to build on something Hallmark said last night, the Brainless Bimbo Nashville Money Machine) either wind up being extremely disappointed that they haven't produced dozens of similar songs or extremely impressed with their versatility and originality.

I'm just putting the finishing touches on the bootleg recording of the show, and it's turned out really well also. The two bootlegs we have of their shows we have seen are probably our two best recordings -- and they are such a crisp live band that I actually like these recordings BETTER than the studio recordings. Plus they have a good rapport with the audience, and it's nice to have that captured. A couple of hours very well spent!

[Posted @ 12:28 PM CST]