Glorious Noise

I’ll listen to anything featuring Kelly Hogan’s harmonies. She’s the special sauce secret ingredient in some of my favorite recordings by Neko Case, the Decemberists, Mavis Staples, and tons more. Her solo stuff is great too. Plus, she tended bar at the Hideout for most of the time I lived in Chicago.

Back in 2001 she told Jim Derogatis that she’d record with just about anybody who asks (“I’m pretty slutty that way, pretty easy, but I always enjoy a challenge.”), but she’s been more selective lately. The drummer for Young Antiques used to be in Hogan’s old band the Jody Grind.

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If you don’t think Los Angeles can produce good country music then you haven’t really been paying attention to your music history lessons. “High In The Valley” features everything you could ask for from the place that put the “Western” in Country and Western: steel guitar, reverb, spooky backing vocals, and that woodblock sound from all the cowboy soundtracks. Plus, it’s got sacrilegious lyrics that reference marijuana consumption. Check, check, check.

Add to that a singer who dresses like a fifties pinup cow gal and you’ve got a recipe for mass appeal. Or at least appeal to the gang of dorks (like me) who enjoy these contrived signifiers….READ MORE