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Recent Articles
Recent Articles by j. poet
Songs of Mass Destruction (J Arista)
Live at Couleur Café (Crammed Discs)
Nu Med (JDub)
120 Days (Vice/Atlantic)
Hit Parade (Single CD Version) (Yep Rock)
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National Features >
City Pages
Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty grooms himself for vice-presidential consideration--by being a jerk.
By Jonathan Kaminsky
Miami New Times
Our reporter sets out in search of a naked lunch.
By Janine Zeitlin
Broward-Palm Beach New Times
Before swinging a bat in a lesbian softball league, pick a side: gay or straight?
By Amy Guthrie
Village Voice
At JFK, Erhan Yildirim clears corpses for takeoff.
By Elizabeth Dwoskin
Old Crow Medicine Show
O.C.M.S. (Nettwerk)
Published on February 12, 2004
Back in the day George Jones had a hit single, "Ragged But Right," about a ne'er-do-well who managed to win the hearts of everyone he met. He could have been singing about the boys in the Old Crow Medicine Show, undoubtedly the finest bluegrass/ragtime/altcountry band in the land. OCMS, like the New Lost City Ramblers before it, formed in N.Y.C. and takes much of its material from early country recordings cut in the Twenties and Thirties, but unlike NLCR it doesn't try to reproduce the sound of old-time folk music. The band supercharges its songs with postpunk energy and irreverent humor, but still manages to stay true to a down-home, drinking-till-you-fall-off-the-front-porch ethos.
When OCMS launches into a tune from its self-titled debut such as "Tell It to Me" or "Tear It Down," the latter a ragtime-tinged bit of country blues, it plays so hard you almost expect its instruments to disintegrate. Critter Fuqua's ballad "Big Time in the Jungle" tells the tale of a Vietnam draftee that parallels the current situation in Iraq, while Ketch Secor's "Hard to Tell" is a knuckle-busting hoedown with a lightning-fast, tongue-twisting lyric. The band is as tight as any bluegrass outfit you can name, but it has a sloppy power that makes its performances sound as if they are about to spin wildly out of control. The production by David Rawlings, Gillian Welsh's partner, captures this manic spirit without any obvious studio trickeration, proving once again the timeless appeal of real folk music.