Houston Blog

Neil Young

Fork In the Road

www.neilyoung.com

Ya gotta love Ol' Shakey. Even moreso than fellow cantankerous classic rocker Bob Dylan, he goes where his muse leads him, everyone else be damned. Acoustic rock? Heavy rock? Country? Blues? Rockabilly? Unintelligible vocoders and synthesizers? He's done them all - and even been sued by his record company for not sounding like himself.

It's a good thing that Neil has full artistic control, too. Imagine the pitch session for his latest album: "I want to do a concept record about my project to turn my 1959 Lincoln Continental into a mostly electric powered vehicle." (it's true! Click here.)

"Oh, and also about America's crumbling financial situation."

As Rocks Off has noted in our periodic Mail Call entries, even though the tide of promo CDs has been greatly reduced by the digital revolution - Rocks Off can count on one finger (the middle one) the times he's actually used the streaming/download email link publicists are ever more fond of these days - he still gets more new CDs via snail mail than any one person can rightfully be expected to audition.

Most of these are eliminated either through gut instinct or a quick glance at the accompanying bio, but quite a few still find their way onto the old CD player. Here's what we've been digging most the past couple of weeks.

The Boxmasters, Modbilly (Vanguard): First of all, we just wanted an excuse to post the hilarious Sling Blade prank call we ran across on YouTube the other day (above). More to the point, Modbilly - which ever so slightly ramps up the British Invasion influence over the laid-back country-rock trio's self-titled 2008 debut - confirms that Billy Bob Thornton's writing talents aren't confined to his Oscar-winning screenplays.

Thornton's originals on Disc 1 ("Ours"), especially "Reasons for Livin'," "That's Why Tammy Has My Car," "New Mexico" and "Two Weeks Notice," deftly balance heartbreak and humor. That, in turn, gives the "Theirs" covers disc a comfortably lived-in feeling that shines on Glen Campbell's "Gentle on My Mind" and Bill Anderson's Sunday-school-teacher rebuke "The Lord Knows I'm Drinkin'." No doubt He does.