One, Two, Three, Four -- The Sadies, Live

The Sadies
Live, Vol. 1
Yep Rec Records

Okay, I'm going to make this quick. Great album. Too. Damn. Long.

Short enough for ya? Okay, I'll elaborate. A bit.

Basically, the Sadies are one of the most intriguing live bands around in Alt Country and Rock N Roll today. They are a great instrumental mix of dusty cowboy ghost songs, screechy surf guitar songs, lonesome country ballads, high-powered three-chord punk, with just a bit of Spaghetti Western good-bad-ugly whoo-ah-whoo-ah-whoooo.... wah-WAH-wah thrown in for good measure. (Remember Shadowy Men From A Shadowy Planet? You know, the guys that did the theme song for Kids in the Hall? They have several songs that are reminiscent of them as well.)

I saw them open for, and then back, Neko Case when she came through on the The Tigers Have Spoken tour. Yep, Neko was ably backed by the Sadies on that album. Sounded great, didn't it? Indeed!

But they're like the freaking Ramones of Alt Country. The songs are intense, high-powered rockers that blow their selves up within 2 minutes. Wham, bam, thank you Sadies.

So they cram forty-one songs on a CD. Holy Ryan Adams, Batman! Zoinks!

Forty-one songs! And a good quarter of those songs are mind-blowingly amazing, with another quarter damn good rockers. But guess what? That still leaves half the album -- a good twenty point five songs, in the alright-as-background-music category. That would be fine, except that if you're listening to it on your iPod, you can go for long, long, long stretches of just background music. It can get a little tiring.

Also, with forty-one songs, they suffer from the same problem as the Ramone's greatest hits -- you just get tired of one band after that many songs. Don't tell me it's the same amount of time as some other live albums. I know that. But it's not the time that counts -- it's all the melodies. Too many melodies, densely packed together.

So what do you do? You buy the album, cause like I said, it's got around twenty great to mind-blowing songs. Then you rip it for your iPod, and then you make a playlist with all your favorites, like so:

* Cheat - instrumental surf rock, if you liked Kids in the Hall you'll love this one
* Why Be So Curious - sing-songy Indie Rock song
* Rat Creek - crazy upbeat surf rock with a hint of Western music, Spaghetti Western!
* Song Of The Chief Musician - reminds me of old school Pink Floyd, or the Who. Very 70s.
* Taller Than The Pines - straight up Alt Country
* Lay Down Your Arms - More surf rock with a country flair. (I'll admit I love this style of music!)
* Higher Power - A high-energy Gospel tune. What it lacks in vocal quality it makes up in toe-tappiness. They sang this one with Neko when I saw them live, and you just gotta love that fiddle!
* Uncle Larry's Breakdown - A high-powered Bluegrass kicker, with of course a name that's likely to inspire my partiality.
* Stay A Little Longer - Yep, this is the classic Country song -- "Stay all night, stay a little longer, dance all night, dance a longer, throw off your coat, throw it in the corner... don't see why you don't stay a little longer!" High energy with rolling country drums, "steel guitar" (not really, but damn it sounds like it), and fiddle!
* Northumberland West - A country instrumental, with just a bit of Jazzy flair.
* Snow Squad - A honkytonk rocker instrumental that polymorphs into a surf rock ballad.
* Ridge Runner Reel - A fiddle tune, played successively faster and faster on the electric guitar, until sanity is lost.
* Dying Is Easy - A lost Clint Eastwood Western soundtrack? You be the judge.
* Tiger Tiger - God, when I heard this live the crowd went nuts.
* Strange Birds - "Strange birds sing of frightening things, too obvious to mention..." Spooky sweet.
* Home - sang by Neko Case! A little cliche-sounding country at first, but when it kicks my spine just tingles.
* Hold On, Hold On - sang by Neko Case, from her new Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. Great, classic Neko song. The opening line -- "The most tender place in my heart is for a stranger..." Whew. I love Neko's dangerous, spooky, Country sound, and the Sadies really magnify that feeling, emphasize just the right part of the music. One of my favorites, without doubt.
* Tailspin - sang by Gary Louris of the Jayhawks!

And in case you were wondering -- this double CD comes out next Tuesday!