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Brent Amaker and the Rodeo - The Pink [EP]

Spark and Shine Records

by william kherbek, January 9th, 2011 and has been Read 1358 times.
Last Edited by: Chris MUG5 Maguire January 15th, 2011.

Fans of Western movies will remember the 1970s as the decade during which directors woke up to the fact that very little of the West was “won”; most of it was stolen by pretty ruthless human beings. While such realisations don’t lend themselves well to narratives of lone white dudes defending civilisation, and whiteness in general, from crazed injuns, conflict and ambiguity can often make for very interesting stories. What a pretentious way to open a review of a four song EP of irony infused country-and-pacific-northwestern songs brought to us by Brent Amaker and the Rodeo! Much like the film genre, it took a long time for practitioners of contemporary country music to wake up to the fact that the genre they were working in was more about a lot more than Stetson hats and steel guitars. There’s a lot of great alt-country out there but there’s only a bit of what Amaker’s doing, a kind of running satire of the genre. At times it works well enough, as on “Saddle Up” a track about being a band on the road and generally being badasses. It had me thinking of the Blues Brothers’ version of the theme from “Rawhide,” how could that ever be a bad thing?

The persona Amaker takes on is pitched somewhere between Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, Lee Hazlewood, and maybe 2 Live Crew. On songs like “I’m the Man Who Writes the Country Hits” the joke stays funny and the vulgarity is manageable without descending into total comedy. There’s also some really spare and lovely guitar runs that give the track the feel of a collaboration between Pavement and the Tennessee Two.

“Sissy New Age Cowboy” also benefits from some fine guitar that would seem aimed at awakening George Thorogood from whatever bunker he’s occupying at the moment. If there’s a problem with the album it’s that at times the irony is a bit too ironic. “The Man in Charge” wears thinner than the other three tracks. Then there’s the issue of Amaker’s voice which is obviously some kind of homage to The Man in Black, or possibly Calvin Johnson, the Man from Beat Happening. Either way, it doesn’t reflect particularly well on Amaker, his voice is fine, but no one is Cash, and Johnson is just a far better lyricist. Still though, if you’re out in Stoke Newington feeling a little bit country, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll, this could soundtrack the pre-Jose Cuervo portion of your evening quite nicely.