Suburban Home Records Mix Tape Vol. 5, Someone’s Gonna Die

Our friends at Suburban Home Records are offering another killer mix tape for Free! This is good stuff people! Thirty songs and over 135 minutes of excellent tunes. Suburban Home is one of the best indie record labels going. After you download this comp, peruse their fine catalog and pick yourself up records form a few of my favorite artists like Two Cow Garage, Drag the River, and Tim Barry.

Download zipped mix tape here (via YouSendIt).

1. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House - Swear to God
2. I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House - Postcards and Apologies (Two Cow Garage cover)
3. Two Cow Garage - Postcards and Apologies
4. Micahel Dean Damron - Waiting Around to Die (Townes Van Zandt cover)
5. Townes Van Zandt - Waiting Around to Die
6. Austin Lucas - Sleep Well (Demo)
7. Trampled By Turtles - Wait So Long
8. Oblio's Arrow - End of the Burning Moon
9. Tim Barry - Exit Wounds
10. Slobberbone - Placemat Blues
11. John Moreland and the Black Gold Band - Bastards of the Highway
12. Jeff Rowe - Kate
13. The Replacements - Unsatisfied
14. Jon Snodgrass - Fast in Last
15. Arliss Nancy - Stella Lovely
16. Jr. Juggernaut - Another Two Weeks
17. Alexander Hudjohn - Down So Low
18. Calling Morocco - Break Your Heart
19. Tin Horn Prayer - Louis Collins
20. Jared Grabb - Devil Between
21. Lucky Old Sun - Back in Style
22. Armchair Martian - ...Not Fine (Demo)
23. The Takers - Drift
24. Look Mexico - Take it Upstairs, Einstein
25. Geraldine Fibbers - Lilybelle
26. Pariah Beat - Elvis in Jerusulum
27. Drag the River - Beautiful and Damned
28. BEERS - I Love You (But I Don't Trust You)
29. The Evening Rig - Half Asleep
30. Hank Williams, Jr. - If You Don't Like Hank Williams

My Album of the Decade

There have been lots of lousy "Top 10 (or 50) albums of the Decade" lists floating about the blogosphere, and most of them have been complete crap. The AV club picked White Blood Cells by The White Stripes. Wrong! Pitchfork selected Radiohead's Kid A. How predictable can Pitchfork get? Both NME and eMusic selected Is This It by The Strokes. As if! Paste choose Sufjan Stevens Illinois. Barf! Paste's readers picked Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco. Don't get me started!

Full Disclosure: I own all of these albums and they are all actually really good.

The real best album of the decade came out in 2000. All hail Slobberbone's Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today. It starts out with "Meltdown" a metaphor on a relationship falling apart. "Hey baby, its the end of the world, I hope you had fun." Then takes it up several notches with "Placemat Blues," possibly the most rocking song of the decade. The record just gets better from there.

EYTWRWWT perfectly blends punk rock and country, and uses a wide range of instrumentation, from horns to banjo to harmonica. It even resurrects the power ballad with "Josephine." My favorite song is "Lazy Guy" which I have posted before. Its my theme song. Check out these lyrics:

I'm a lazy guy
I'm amazed at the way some people try and try and try
To erect and then perfect some kind of proof that they're alive before they die
Well not me, 'cause I'm a lazy guy

Now that's just good song writing. No pretense here. Yeah, I'm talking to you Wilco and Radiohead.

Lead singer Brent Best has the perfect country/rock voice, sometimes sounding like he gargles with Jim Beam, and at other times sounding like a sweet raspy-voiced folk singer. Here's a funny quote by Best about EYTWRWWT from a recent interview, "What the hell do you do with a Grammy anyways? Can you Ebay them for cash?"

You can hear how influential this album was to subsequent 2000s releases, most obviously Lucero's new album 1372 Overland Park.

Although Slobberbone disbanded in 2004, they have recently resurfaced for a new tour. And, my man on the ground tells me that a new album is in the works. Can't wait!

Placemat Blues.mp3
Pinball Song.mp3
Buy: Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today (2000)

Lazy Guy

I have no ambition to do anything. I don't want to clean my apartment. I don't want to exercise. I certainly don't want to do more than the absolute minimum at work. I barely even want to update my blog.

This song by Slobberbone very succinctly sums up my life right now.

Lazy Guy.mp3
Buy (MP3 only): Everything You Thought Was Right Was Wrong Today (2000)
Such a great country rock album. You must own this one!