Customer Reviews

Tools in the Dryer

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An odds and sods compilation from everyone's favorite umpteen-piece
Nashville collective, this disc includes recordings that span thirteen years
(1987-2000) and incorporate everything from squeakily harmonized
recorders taped on a bedroom four-track to lush strings and disco beats.
This is obviously a treasure trove for fans, but non-fans, too, will find
much to enjoy, once they have checked out some of the group's more
cohesive releases, such as last year's sublime "Nixon" (Merge, 2000).
There's the requisite handful of gorgeous down-beat country ballads
(especially "Whitey" and a cover of Vic Chestnutt's "Miss Prissy").
There's an invigorating remix of "Up With People," from "Nixon," which
massages that song's gospel-choir hook into a heavenly delirium.
There's the bopping "Nine," the band's first single for Merge, with a great
"deet-deet-deet" chorus. And there's the awesome "Style Monkeys," a
bedroom recording from 1987, which contains the fiercest drum machine
I've heard in a while. There aren't many bands out there who could do
all of this under the auspices of being a country group, and the fact that
Lambchop could relegate all of this musical invention to a loose-ends
comp with a mediocre title and cover art is a testament to their talent
and relevance.

If the only Lambchop music you possess is any (or all) of their 7 previous CDs, Tools In The Dryer is for you. Of the 16 songs here, only 4 are culled from previous releases, and those 4 are completely different from the CD versions. Included are the hard-to-find singles 'Whitey' and 'Cigaretiquette', B-sides, previously unreleased early material (when the band was called PosterChild), and assorted odds and ends, like the smokin' live version of the R&B staple 'Love TKO'. Included is a version of 'Moody F&cker', which sounds like three different songs being played at the same time that all come together at the song's end.

Rather than sequence the songs from beginning to most recent releases, the band has chosen to highlight its development from an off-kilter 'alt-country' oddity into a smooth, Memphis-style soul outfit.

While the early material sounds pretty raw and the remixes of Give Me Your Love and Up With People would best be played at dance clubs, there is enough here of what makes Lambchop special to satisfy the fans of this unique band in any period of its evolution. Copiuos liner notes by horn player Jonathan Marx will give fans an insight as to how this band came to where it is today.

I regret discovering this band only last year (2000).

A collection of B-sides and other various songs that were never released on an album should not make a "best of in a year" complimation. However, this one is just too good. Not as good as last years masterpiece, Nixon, but it's not supposed to be either. This is a collection of rarities and a damn fine one at that. Check out The Velvet Undergroundish Flowers of Memory to the 70's pop of Up With People. Deserves to be heard, for a lot of reasons. This band has a wide range of styles they can play well.