One of my more random music discoveries occured a few years ago while viewing my friend's livejournal post. He was complaining about how when he was younger, his parents wouldn't let him go to see bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Sublime or Cowboy Mouth.
One of these things is not like the other. So armed with Rhapsody I decided to get to know the music of Cowboy Mouth and it turned out it was pretty good. It just so happened that a month later they were performing at the Music Mill in Indianapolis so a group of us decided to go check them out.
I'll start a new paragraph for this one. Cowboy Mouth puts on the best live show I've ever seen. I had liked the stuff I heard online, but it was nothing compared to the experience of being at the show. The drummer was the front man and wore a Drew Brees jersey and no shoes. There was so much energy and crowd participation. We were all exhausted after seeing them play, which I'm pretty sure was a concert first. Needless to say Cowboy Mouth has become one of my favorite bands. I've seen them live 5 times and will continue to go anytime they are in the area because it never gets old. At their last show, they mentioned their new album coming out, which I ordered from amazon as soon as it came out.
Since I've been obsessed with Rock Band lately, everytime I hear songs, I think about how good of a rock band track it would make, especially for drumming. This would definitely be a great downloadable album.
While it's hard to capture the energy and emotion of the live show on a cd, this comes pretty close. And since they performed several of these in concert before the album came out, I can always close my eyes and imagine how it was live.
Two of these songs were previously released on other albums as Cowboy Mouth is wont to do at times. They edited Disconnected (boo censorship) and also redid Tell The Girl You're Sorry which is quite a funny song.
The first part of the album is very strong and vintage Cowboy Mouth. Griff's token song "Follow Me" is also good with a little Black Crowes vibe to it. The last few tracks are a little weak, but still not horrible. Listening to the first eight songs is an absolute delight. In particular I'm fond of "Anything" which to my knowledge is the first uplifting bitter song I've ever heard. The lyrics describe how he's strong and can live through anything now that his girlfriend used him and left him. I had recently been through a break-up very similar so this became a theme song of sorts for me.
Overall this is a very strong album, I would recommend to anyone who enjoys the mellower alternative sound or just good old-fashioned roots rock. I only wish there was a wardrobe option in Rock Band to make your drummer barefoot. Oh well, maybe Rock Band 2 will fix it.
Rating 8/10
Notable songs: "Anything", "Belly", "Tell The Girl You're Sorry", "Kelly Ripa"
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I hadn't noticed the censoring of "Disconnected" yet. Thanks for ruining it for me.
The best part of "Tell the Girl Ur Sorry" is when Regina jumps in on the lyrics to sing "Get down on your knees!" I don't know why they waited until this version of the song to let the female bassist sing that part.
While I agree with your recommending songs, the two that seem to stick in my head the most (after "Kelly Ripa") are "Kiss Da Baby" and "The Lord Knows I'm Drinkin'." I think it's the clapping in the former and I just like the irreverence in the latter.
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