Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Fist City Ramblers (Live)

There's no classier way to do a send up of a girl on her 30th birthday than to trainwreck your way through a dozen-plus classic country songs. Our own Mary Jane Walbridge got the star treatment last fall courtesy of the one-off podunk troupe, the Fist City Ramblers. Named in honor of Loretta Lynn's ode to woman-on-woman violence, "Fist City," the rambling foursome assembled a selection of old down-home tunes sure to make the birthday girl smile and laugh. Whether she was laughing with us or at us is another question, but there are some good ones in there. Many thanks to Ed Gildner for surprising us with this bootleg.


Fist City Ramblers are:
Joshua Barton - vocals, guitar, bass
Cathy Illman - vocals, guitar
Corey Kellicut - vocals, lap steel
Greg Lamb - bass, guitar

Track / Original Artist / FCR vocals
1. There Stands the Glass (Webb Pierce) (Joshua)
2. Fist City (Loretta Lynn) (Cathy)
3. Loose Talk (Buck Owens/Rose Maddox) (Cathy & Joshua)
4. Good Hearted Woman (Waylon Jennings) (Joshua)
5. Pistol Packin' Mama (Al Dexter) (Joshua)
6. You Done Me Wrong (George Jones) (Corey)
7. Weary Blues From Waitin' (Hank Williams) (Cathy)
8. I Don't Care (Just As Long As You Love Me) (Buck Owens) (Joshua)
9. If I Don't Love You (Grits Ain't Groceries) (George Jones) (Corey)
10. Don't Stay Away ('Til Love Grows Cold) (Lefty Frizzel) (Joshua)
11. No Place For Me (Laura Cantrell) (Joshua)
12. Please Darlin' Please (Charlene Arthur) (Cathy)
13. Detroit City (Bobby Bare) (Corey)
14. Happy Birthday, Mary Jane

Download it here.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

TEMPLETONS / TEMPLETONS

Cusp of the 21st century. Behold, E.B. White meets Dee Dee Ramone. TEMPLETONS were four Michigan dudes with no scruples about copping their favorite band's style. Ramones jackets, Ramones shoes, Ramones-style songs. Named in honor of the gluttonous rat from Charlotte's Web, these homeboys ate up basement party fun like a veritable smorgasbord. The boys kept it up from 1999 to 2003, reforming briefly for an anti-Black Friday party in November 2010 - just to prove that they still don't care how much they sound like their favorite band. Hence these resurrected tunes, scraped from the fetid bowels of a late 90s C-45 and vomited onto the internet tubes. Enjoy it. Or don't.