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Call me presumptuous, but I'm guessing that a lot of you Splendid
readers don't have a favorite bluegrass album. Oh, the shame of it!
Luckily for y'all, More Songs About Buildings and Cows will
serve nicely as your favorite bluegrass album. Austin's Meat Purveyors have
cooked up a mess of mandolin, fiddle and gee-tar, topped with a heaping
helping of exuberant vocal harmony courtesy of the winsome Jo Stanli
Walston and the sultry Cherilyn DiMond. You'll get a tasty mixture of
tongue-in-cheek originals, obscure covers (including the obligatory
Daniel Johnston track -- "Museum of Love", in this case) and standards,
all rendered in a faithful, tuneful, heart-rendingly jangly C&W style --
but when these kids get cooking, as on the boisterous "Little White Pills",
you'll suddenly see the missing link between bluegrass and punk rock.
Is there really that much difference between a fiddle-sizzling hoedown ditty and
a balls-to-the-wall hardcore track? Methinks not. That's the beauty of the whole Insurgent Country phenomenon: you can slam dance to "Can't You Hear Me Callin'" as easily
as you can square dance to it, if rather less gracefully. Alternately, you
can
skip the dancing, kick, back, open a cold one and enjoy the music.
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