Well — here it is. The actual end of the line for this podcast. (Don’t worry — I’m too invested in the blog to give it up any time soon.) I actually recorded a draft of this a few weeks ago but got too busy in the lead up to my top surgery to edit it, so now I’m taking the luxury to do it over. When I put the episode together, though, it was a fitting one: I had just seen the queer country revue show the Roundup, Americanafest announced its 2022 lineup, and, of course, I was preparing for a huge change for myself. It all just feels like a bunch of big shifts in my life!
Once again, I want to thank Von Cloedt for helping me get the podcast off the ground five years ago, and for helping me get Adobe & Teardrops off the ground ten years ago. By the way, you can still donate to the Adobe & Teardrops 10th Anniversary Fundraiser, which supports Jewish immigrant rights group Never Again Action. I’ll put the link in the shownotes. You can also check out Von’s shop at TV Artworks, where he makes colorful renditions of ’80s and ’90s tv characters.
But I want to go back to that concert a few weeks ago, which featured Patrick Haggerty of Lavender Country, Jett Holden, Paisley Fields, and Austin Lucas. I didn’t see any of the usual crowd there — not the middle-aged white dudes who show up to Austin’s shows or the people I’ve grown accustomed to at Paisley’s shows or the Gay Ole Opry. Instead, the crowd was a bunch of twenty-somethings having the time of their life.
Karen, who got the Gay Ole Opry started, hasn’t been able to perform publicly because of the risk of COVID. I really missed her, and it got me to thinking about everything that’s changed since I began Adobe & Teardrops. I never thought I’d see someone from the punk side of Americana like Austin join my local queer country heroes on stage. No offense, but I also never thought that queer country artists from Brooklyn would gain national promise. Seeing the four of them on stage, seeing all the kids in the crowd, the only thing I could think of was “We did it.” Everything I had hoped to do with this blog, it feels, has begun to come to fruition.
But that piece feels incomplete without Karen, and in music, like in history, it feels like you only get included in the narrative if you’re physically there. That sucks, so I wanted to dedicate this episode to the unsung heroes of Americana from the 2010s. The genre now has a Grammy category, radio chart, and prestigious music festival in Nashville. But before all that, it was a bunch of punks who wanted to soften the blow. So this episode is dedicated, with some Twitter crowdsourcing, to all the bands who took it on the chin and should be more revered than they are. And then, keep listening, because I’m not out of the podcast game yet — I’ll discuss my plans about midway through the episode.
Let’s start off our first five-song set with the song that started it all — for me. Cowboy Mouth’s recording of “Light It On Fire” made me aware that all that Southern rock I heard on classic rock radio was still a thing — back in 1999, anyway. You can hear me go on and on about Cowboy Mouth on Sloane Spencer’s One Hit History, which I’ll link to in the shownotes. Paul Sanchez, who wrote the song, is one of the prolific songwriters who helped pave the way to make New Orleans a punk and rock destination: I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that we wouldn’t have artists like Hurray For the Riff Raff if Paul and his cohort hadn’t paved the way.
- Paul Sanchez/Cowboy Mouth — “Light It on Fire” (Word of Mouth) (04:58)
2. Glossary — “A Shoulder to Cry On” (Long Live All Of Us) (07:01)
3. Porter and the Bluebonnett Rattlesnakes — “Your Hometown” (Don’t Go Baby, It’s Gonna Get Weird Without You) (11:12)
4. Audra Mae — “The Real Thing” (Audra May and the Almighty Sound) (15:13)
5. Joseph Plunket & The Weight — “Grand Street” (Nowhere Now) (18:08)
We followed Cowboy Mouth up with Glossary. I’ve said it before but I have a confession: I haven’t really listened to any of Glossary’s other albums. It was their last, it was their best. Why pursue anything other than perfection? We also listened to a song off of what would inadvertently become Chris Porter’s posthumous album Don’t Go Baby, It’s Gonna Get Weird Without You.
If you don’t know Porter, you know artists who do. Porter was in Some Dark Holler and the Back Row Baptists. He dated Bonnie Whitmore, whose recent project the Whitmore Sisters is gaining some recognition. On his last album, the band consisted of Will Johnson, Drive by Truckers’ Shonna Tucker, John Calvin Abney, Chris Masterson, and Eleanore Whitmore of the Mastersons. Are those enough bona fides for you?
And we rounded out the set with Gabe’s request for Audra Mae. I remember the name but can’t say I listened to her music too much — but hot damn what a voice! Brandi who? The last song was Joey Plunket & the Weight, as requested by Tucker Riggleman. We’ll be playing some of Tucker’s music in the next set.
You may notice that most of the artists in this episode are white dudes and I say — yes! You’re right! That’s why I started Adobe & Teardrops in the first place, to insist on a platform for the artists who I knew were out there — and I’m happy that this is no longer a pipe dream on a random Blogspot blog.
In the meantime, here’s another set mostly made of Tucker’s requests! I feel like Drag the River is well-known among Americana nerds, but maybe not so much to the rest of the world. As you’ll hear, Jon Snodgrass truly has the quintessential Americana voice.
6. Drag the River — “Here’s to the Losers” (Drag the River) (24:58)
7. Lenny & The Piss-Poor Boys — “Cambridgeport Salloon” (Lenny & The Piss-Poor Boys) (28:39)
8. Prison Book Club — “Too Much Livin'” (Prison Book Club) (31:42)
9. Becky Warren — “Stay Calm Get Low” (War Surplus) (35:27)
10. Have Gun, Will Travel — “Spirit of Discovery” (Science From an Easy Chair) (39:32)
Once again, to be totally transparent I never really listened much to Lenny & The Piss-Poor Boys — at the time it was too old school for me. But I need to go back now that I have more refined tastes. Tucker also nominated his own band, Prison Book Club. I was so excited when this EP came out…and I’m also excited that Tucker is still out there making rock’n’roll that will get your blood running hot.
Then we listened to Becky Warren’s ode to the military as requested by Dirt Reynolds. Warren really is an incredible songwriter; this album was put together using Warren’s interviews with veterans and captures the absurdity of war. Speaking of absurd, afterwards was Have Gun, Will Travel’s “Spirit of Discovery” from their concept album about the Shackleton voyage, Science From an Easy Chair.
This next set is all from my man Reginald Spears at Farce the Music. I have not spent much time with the first three artists in this set, but I’m looking forward to catching up. Here’s Robyn Ludwick’s “Out of These Blues.”
11. Robyn Ludwick — “Out of these Blues” (YouTube) (45:08)
12. Ha Ha Tonka — “Lessons” (Lessons) (49:09)
13. The Trishas — “Mother of Invention” (High, Wide, and Handsome) (53:42)
14. Arliss Nancy — “Abacus” (Truckstop Roses) (57:24)
15. The Pollies — “Something New” (Where the Lies Begin) (1:01:26)
Reginald’s other requests were ha Ha Tonky and the Trishas who, again, I missed the first time around but won’t make that mistake again. After them was Arliss Nancy, which, like Drag the River, came out of Colorado. You can hear Jon Snodgrass again on the song “Abacus.” Amazing band live. The lead singer, Cory Call, now has a band called Little Teeth that has that same raw yearning. The Pollies, of course, are the greatest backing band in Americana but when they put out this psych rock in 2012, nobody was doing it. Now it’s just indie rock. So, give all these folks their flowers: nobody should be forgotten.
Speaking of which, here’s what I’m doing instead of Adobe & Teardrops: going all in on Rainbow Rodeo, the queer country zine. I’ve launched a bi-monthly newsletter of queer country news which, starting this summer, will feature essays by other journalists and artists. Those essays will then be compiled into a zine that comes out twice a year. To expand my media empire, I’m going to re-start my queer country interview podcast, this time under the name Rainbow Rodeo, so keep an eye out for that in the next few weeks! The best way to keep up with Rainbow Rodeo stuff is to sign up for the newsletter — and click the button twice! To financially support Rainbow Rodeo, you can donate through the Rainbow Rodeo website, or sign up to the Patreon — you’ll only be charged when the zine is ready to print, twice a year.
Well, this brings us to the actually final, very last song of the Adobe & Teardrops podcast: Two Cow Garage’s “No Shame.” This song has fueled me for the last 10 years, and it’s going to keep me going well beyond that.
In music we trust, in music we believe.
16. Two Cow Garage — “No Shame” (III) (1:07:44)