August 10, 2006
Ruby Dee & the Snakehandlers
All right, I’ll admit it. I used to be a covert country music fan. When company came calling I hid my Dwight Yoakam, Steve Earl, and Gram Parsons CDs. But recently I began hearing artists such as Neko Case, Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins, and the Elected and proudly jumped on the alt country music bandwagon and fell passionately and openly in love with the genre. Now that I’m out of the closet, allow me to share my latest find with you. Drawing inspiration from traditional country crooners such as Hank Williams Sr., Buck Owens and Patsy Cline to the legendary punk outfits X and the Blasters, Ruby Dee & the Snakehandlers offer up a cocktail of Bakersfield hard twang, Memphis rockabilly, Southwest Tex-Mex and Northeast rock ‘n’ roll for a shit kickin’ barnyard stomp. Ruby Dee’s boisterous voice is complemented by the lush harmonies offered up by acoustic guitarist Liz Smith while Jorge Harada’s Telecaster guitar adds just the right amount of twang. The Seattle-based honky-tonkers just released their first full-length, North of Bakersfield, in July. Like their previous two EPs, the disc encompasses a mix of hardcore country and rousing rockabilly but slows it down for crying in your beer ballads. 9 p.m., free, Eastside Club Tavern, 410 E. Fourth Ave., Olympia. — Tony Engelhert
Posted by weeklyvolcano on August 10, 2006 at 07:06 PM in Club Hopping, Music, Olympia | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
