The Chicks vs the Hot Club, Live

I just got an Amazon order last week, and let me tell you -- pass on the Dixie Chicks live CD. It sucks. Get the new Hot Club of Cowtown instead.

I'm sorry, I love the Chicks, and I've seen them live on TV, and it rocked. I'm remembering especially the time when they were on Austin City Limits, and Natalie was like eight months pregnant, and they still rocked. However, they seem to have found the most boring, saccharinne performance ever. And the recording is terrible. It sounds like they had to make sure you could hear the crowd noise, by God, and so everything sounds far away and indistinct. Two thumbs down.

However, despite the two whorish-looking pictures of Elana on the front and back cover of the new Hot Club of Cowtown disk, Continental Stomp, this is a fine album. I wish they'd come back to NC. God, that was a great house concert! And for the record, Elana Fremerman is a beautiful woman, and she's an even more beautiful fiddle player. However, for someone who can handle phrasing so well on the fiddle, her singing phrasing is so odd. I can't get into it. I like the songs that Whit sings better. But that version of Orange Blossom Special! Whew! (And my guilty pleasure is the secret song, it's too damn funny.)

Oh, and on an ironic note -- Natalie Maines' father, Lloyd Maines, was the guy who produced the Hot Club's CD. It's like rain on your wedding day... discuss.