Hey y'all ... yee haw!

I've got nothin' to write/type here to lead into tonight's music. Nothing. No topic comes to mind. Not a one.

New York Mets beat the scumbag Atlanta Braves. Freakin' sweet that it was a late afternoon game on ESPN here in Alaska. No other team in baseball I'd rather see the Mets beat, not even the Bronx Bombers. Close game with those tomahawk chopping, chitlin eating, slack-jawed yokels... but in the clutch Shawn Green drives in the go-ahead run in the Bottom of the 8th... so great! 3 for 4 for him, Moises extended his hitting streak to like 16 or 17 or somethin' like that and another stolen base for Reyes. (Could he someday wipe out Rickey's single season record?!?) Gotta respect future Hall of Famer John Smoltz but he was denied another W notch in his glove. That loser team from the South took the middle game of the series but a big fat couple-a losses the other two games. Suckers. Go away, Atlanta. No National League Eastern Division title for you AGAIN this year. Okay, you've had us beat the heck down like a frog stepped on in the mud pretty much for most of the past two decades... but how ya been lately? Years of payback ahead. Years of losses and years of disappointment... yer owed, jerkbags. Owed huge. Go watch your dogfights and gay little high school football, your baseball season's over.

P.S. I hate you!

Gretchen Wilson

Here For The Party

2004 debut

Here For The Party
Redneck Woman
When I Think About Cheatin'
Homewrecker
Holdin' You
Chariot
What Happened
When It Rains
The Bed (featuring Big & Rich)
Pocahontas Proud

Hailing from an incredibly tiny town, Pocahontas, Illinois, not that far from St. Louis, Gretchen Wilson most definitely is the biggest thing that ever came from her hometown. She was just another girl looking to make it big in the music biz... and holy cow, did she ever! This debut album was #1 on the country music charts in 1994, one of the best selling albums of the year. So many come and go, few lucky enough to cut a record which then goes on to do nothing, no radio play, no charted singles... and even fewer are lucky enough for fame but Ms. Wilson has achieved that and then some!

Her debut features a nice blend of country rockers along with some really nice ballads. One cut does stand out as, well, being out there on the edge -- Chariot gets a little jiggy jiggy with record scratching rap. Uhhh... ohhhh-kay. But the rest is pure Nashville country at it's uncheesiest finest. Of the other non-radio singles, When It Rains is the best, without a doubt. Such a great country bar, Texas feel to it. Ya gotta love when it's more Tanya Tucker or George Jones sounding than cross-over Faith "Beverly" Hill(s). Pretty much every track of Here For The Party is exactly not for Hollywood, more like for Abilene or San Antonio or Austin. And on top of the great sound, a majority of the songs Gretchen herself co-wrote and that's not prevalent with Nashville artists.

A potentially huge drawback to all this new found fame of hers -- that's a lot to live up to. An independent singer/songwriter can book gigs, release CDs, find more shows to play, not have a lot of overhead, make a living, have a nice little legion of local fans and not worry about all that fame vanishing someday. Pros and cons, I guess.

In any case -- this is a pretty sweet debut album and it's pretty clear why it went to the top. When you make music this good it's gonna get noticed and this album sure did!

320 kbps dload @ JustGoodTunes