Dirty Bandi

Calling what they do "outlaw folk American," the El Paso, Texas-born band the Dirty River Boys generate an energetic blend of tight narrative songs, bluegrass drive, multi-part vocal harmonies, gospel passion, and a solid dose of rock & roll attitude into a potent mix that is all the more amazing for being entirely acoustic.

An unexcitingly exciting Band with honest lyrics and lots of pressure. Music that sounds like Doors, Lemmy, Dylan, dirt and Stones. Straight ahead grounded 70s Rock with Blues and Folk and everything that goes straight through the ear to the heart.

Deluxe Edition 2 CD set features 35 tracks including b-sides and previously unreleased versions. Sonic Youth's second major-label album, produced and mixed by Butch Vig and Andy Wallace (a team that had helped turn Nirvana's NEVERMIND multi-platinum) was not the barefaced bid for mainstream acceptance that surly underground souls grumbled about in the pages of fanzines. While Vig and Wallace give guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo, bassist Kim Gordon, and phenomenal drummer Steve Shelley a wide-screen panorama for their bizarrely-tuned assaults, DIRTY is probably Sonic Youth's most uncompromising album since 1985's BAD MOON RISING–particularly in the lyrical department. Dropping the deliberate obscurantism, Philip K. Dick references, and smart-alecky snottiness, Sonic Youth brackets a slew of pointed political attacks ("Youth Against Fascism," "Swimsuit Issue," and the Jesse Helms-bashing "Chapel Hill") with two passionate tributes to the band members' murdered friend, Joe Cole ("100%" and "JC"). That DIRTY is Sonic Youth's most commercial-sounding album makes it that much more subversive.

Admittedly, Mike Campbell's first album with the Dirty Knobs two years ago passed me by to some extent. Although the songs of Tom Petty would not have been scalded without Campbell's pointed guitar playingthe same ones, of course, and also what he does on Don Henley's "The Boys Of Summer", for example, is terrific – but when accompanying musicians become bandleaders, it often doesn't turn out too exciting.