Customer Reviews

Buttermilk & Rifles

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kev Russell is a quality musician: something that is not easy to find in the era of boy bands and pop idles. He is a genuine songwriter and performer and it comes through in his music. The tracks, though eclectic, all display the same raw sense of a live performance...it kept me interested and yearning for more. I loved it!!

Kev Russell throws out images at a 100 miles per hour while the band supplies everything from greasy rock to traditional folk & country on which to drape these unusual images. One may not easily detect what the opener "Virgin of the Cobra" is about, but it's a lot of fun, "I'm high as a cow in a heat seekin' jacket, cumulous rising like a louisiana casket." Max Johnston's fiddle is beautiful on "Twilight of Song" as the track concludes with screams. "(Somebody Bring Me A Flower) I'm A Robot" was written with Kev's three-year old son, "I'm a robot, I'm not a power ranger." Kev does the traditional tune "Way Fallen Stranger" with a howling folk/rock adaptation, "I'm going there to that juicy city to meet my sisters on their bikes, all wicked thought & danger cast out, the pearl of wine & sod." "Shoetie Rag" is a great bluegrass instrumental. With Mark Rubin's tuba, "Sam Morgan" is as loony as it is fun, "He once killed a man in a Chevy Stegosaurus down in Loozyann." "Milk & Tears" clocks in as a slow country weeper with Jon Dee Graham's lap steel crying mournfully. A.P. Carter's "No More the Moon Shines On Lorena" is a traditional folk track that'll make you feel like the Junkers are settin' on the back porch playin' & swattin' flies. Debra Kelly does some powerful harmonizing with Max Johnston's gorgeous fiddle on "Imbibing My Prescriptions." "Church on Fire" is a sweet little shuffle with Kev's lyrical stamp, "Standing on the promise, I can't tie my shoe, Eating my crow with a silver spoon." Who knows why Ivan Pavlov's portrait with the dates of his life is included next to "Blackfoot"; but the closing track is a swampy number that is cousin to Tony Joe White. The CD concludes with the sweet hidden track of Kev dueting with his three-year old son Guthrie on uke on a short reprise of "I'm A Robot." "Buttermilk & Rifles" is so unusual that it sometimes leaves you looking at the tunes rather than getting inside of them, but it is musically excellent and certainly original. It's great for a "And now for something completely different" CD! Enjoy!

When I played this for a friend from Washington, La., it made him homesick. But it's not your typical cajun-style record. It's not typical anything really. It's fiercely brilliant songwriting, bizarre lyrics that stick with you, and more fun than I've had with most bands. If you're a fan of the Gourds (and why shouldn't you be?) you'll already recognize his distinctive nasal twang. So if you like your music safe and corporate, stay away. But if you like it edgy and iconoclastic and so beautiful it can make you cry sometimes, buy this disc.

Being Gourds fanatics, we swooped on this one when it was first released. And, the truth of the matter is, it's never lost its grip. The most played set of music in the house. The 6 year-old plays it before trundling off to school to set her game plan in motion. The 18 year-old cooks and does her other chores to it; chores of enchantment(thanks, Howie!). The wife and I dance and canoodle to it.It can't be too bad. It's an all-over the shop type thing, that fits the Gourd's eclectic, collective state of mind. And that suits ours, so well. Other reviewers have annotated the thing more than adequately. So this is just a heart-felt endorsement.Rock on guys!