Customer Reviews

Poor Little Knitter On The Road: A Tribute To The Knitters

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This is a really fun album. It's a tribute to the Knitters, who did a punk/country album in the 80s that was, itself, a tribute to the Carter Family and other country greats. This album features some great bands (Trailer Bride, The Handsome Family, The Sadies) and one song by the Knitters themselves. People who are into oldtime country or roots music will love this album, because it's a fun twist on the old stuff. People who are into Chicago indie rock and 80s punk will also appreciate this album. It's a real gem.

Not bad, but the original Knitters were *so* much better! I recommend anyone buy the original first. That was truly a work of unvarnished American rockabilly-punk. Listening again to my vinyl copy I hear mistakes, things falling on the floor in the background, general chaos--in a word, *energy*. Really high energy. Just listening to the original Knitters' "Rock Island Line," brings back that visceral disgust I felt then for anyone over the age of 21! For X, The Cramps, and guys like Billy Zoom, Dave Alvin, and even Brian Setzer, music was not about airplay but about nasty, dark, smoky clubs the size of garages that fat, tassel-loafer-and-shorts middle-aged suburban guys use for their Z3s, their neglected wives' SUVs and their riding lawn mowers, and found in nasty, dark, smelly alleys of downtown where the rats under the dumpsters were the size of the wife's jack russell.

So if you *really* want to hear rockabilly-punk, find the original. And if you're sick to death of market-driven, techno-busy pop like Britney, Eminem or any other current "musician" then dig up other stuff made or produced by these old rockabilly guys--just read the liner notes and go from there. If you're unconvinced of the terminal zombifying effects of record company marketing just listen to an old 1963 recording of the Beatles playing the Star Club in Hamburg, and you'll understand. Even *they* were a different band back then--they had ENERGY!