Forget fashion
Red Meat gets fans laughing, dancing and drinking
By Bliss 09/06/2007
“Country” has attracted several shifting meanings and taken some well-deserved beatings over the past few decades. The current kings and queens of Nashville's favorite export — Keith Urban, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Sara Evans, Toby Keith, Sugarland, et al. — have more in common with post-outlaw country 1970s rockers and romantic MOR pop than with harder-edged country icons like Hank Williams, George Jones, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Bakersfield honky-tonkers Buck Owens and Merle Haggard.
But while honky-tonk may be currently marginalized by mainstream country, it lives on in club land, nurtured by the passion of musicians and fans who like to drink and dance. LA has a long history of hosting honky-tonk, whether nurturing new bands in its multicultural midst or welcoming travelers from out of town. In recent years the trend has been toward Western-shirted, bellbottom-wearing fans of Gram Parsons, the visionary and sadly doomed artist who, in tandem with Byrds and Flying Burrito Brothers bandmate Chris Hillman, began twining country with rock, R&B, soul, gospel, folk and bluegrass in the late 1960s. Parsons' open-minded melding of glamour and traditional American music plays well with Hollywood hipsters.
Elsewhere, however, a staunchly traditional contingent favors grittier honky-tonk by the likes of the Hacienda Brothers and Red Meat over hippified, cosmic Americana. This week, Oakland quintet Red Meat makes a mini-tour of LA.
Red Meat is promoting a new CD, “We Never Close,” produced by Dave Alvin (who also helmed the band's well-received 2001 album “Alameda County Line”) and engineered and mixed by Mark Linett at his studio in Glendale. It's packed with chicken- pickin'-studded invitations to the dance floor like “Honky Tonk Habit,” “Pretty Little Lights of Town,” “Queen of King City” and “City Slicker,” steel-washed weepers such as “Sunday” and “I'm Not the Girl for You,” an electric instrumental showcase for lead guitarist Michael Montalto (“Moonrock”) and even a lighthearted gospel track (“I'm Gonna Leave Here Shoutin'”).
Comprised of transplanted Midwesterners with a penchant for retro thrift-shop wear, Red Meat's doubtless not pretty or hip enough for Hollywood or CMT. But they're a kick in the pants live; wisecracking frontman Smelley Kelley is particularly notorious for his ribald humor onstage, and he and harmony-singing bassist Jill Olson tease out double entendres from between the lines of classic two-steppers. By old-school standards, country or otherwise, the truest test of a club band is the dance floor, where fashion's trumped by a steady shuffle. Red Meat knows how to deliver the goods.
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