Paging Mr. Sandman

Yes, another voice making itself heard here at Barstool Mountain. I'm Sean, one of the judges on the original panel. My usual homes are Deadly Tango and the Malt & Barley Chronicles, but I've been meaning to chime in here more frequently.

Today's contribution is a song that I remembered too late to make it part of the entire judging process therefore leaving it just outside the Top 100. Treat Her Right was a leading light in the rebirth of the Boston blues-rock scene in the late 1980s. Mark Sandman and Billy Conway went on to be the driving forces behind Morphine, who went on to have a good deal more success outside of Boston (though they never quite clicked for me).

THR's trademark sound was dark, swampy, languid, and thick. Their first big hit on Boston radio was this selection, I Think She Likes Me (#113) It takes a social interaction at the local tavern into unexpected (though not unfamiliar) territory, and is well worth your time.

Treat Her Right: I Think She Likes Me (mp3)

Honkytonk Angels

Music to follow, but first an announcement.

As many of you have noticed, since you most likely came here from there, my main site, Big Rock Candy Mountain has had a few...problems...over the past week. I got hijacked, and Blogger has completely cocked up the situation. The site is now on it's fourth owner, and is a virulent site. Please do not go there anymore (you may notice I'm not providing a link). Luckily, I've managed to recover the blog itself, and moved it to a new address, Big Rock Candy Mountain (www.therealbigrockcandymountain.blogspot.com). The name's still the same, the content is still the same, but the address is slightly different. I have given up trying to recover the original URL. It's been an exercise in futility. If you have linked to me at the old address, please update your links. The link to Big Rock Candy Mountain on the sidebar has been updated also, so you can now click on it with confidence. I'll have a new, real post up on Friday. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused anyone.

Now, on to the music.

Fats Domino's "Whiskey Heaven" came in at #66 on the Big Rock Candy Mountain/Barstool Mountain Top 100 Drinking Songs List. It's been moving up my personal favorites list for awhile now.

Essentially Fats doing Country, the song lopes in a lazy rolling piano and steel guitar haze. I think it's virtually impossible for Domino's voice to actually twang, being a boogie woogie R&B man, but his phrasing is dead-on honkytonk bar ballad. It's a swell little number, finding that spot of paradise in a bottle. It also features one of my favorite lines in song: "Flyin' high with honkey-tonk angels in whiskey heaven."

Every afternoon when I wake up
I say a little prayer and I drink up
I thank the lord for driving me home
Once more

There's an open bottle on the table
And an empty bottle on the floor
Last night I thought I'd died
And I went to Whiskey Heaven

You know the sun never shines in Whiskey Heaven
It rains Jack Daniels all the time
There's a price you pay, hang overs everyday
Flyin' high with honkey tonk angels in Whiskey Heaven

There's a run down bar, it's a open all night
When me and my friends can get tight
Underneath the neon lights
In Whiskey Heaven

Well we drank a little beer and wine
We stay drunk most of the time
We're always raisin' hell all night
In Whiskey Heaven

You know the sun never shines in Whiskey Heaven
It rains Jack Daniels all the time
There's a price you pay, hang overs everyday
Flyin' high with honkey tonk angels in Whiskey Heaven

Flyin' high with honky-tonk angels in Whiskey Heaven
Flyin' high with honky-tonk angels in Whiskey Heaven

The song was featured in the essential box set From Where I Stand: The Black Experience In Country Music.

Skaal!

Fats Domino: Whiskey Heaven (mp3)

Thanks for stopping by. Please support your local, independent distillery.

Beer Barrel Heaven

We've got another guest poster, Richard Solensky, today, who's got a bone to pick with us about a classic drinking song we've left off the Top 100 Drinking Songs list. He'd also like to chat with you a bit about #32 on the list. Mr. Solensky, the Barstool is yours:


"Polka is the forgotten genre of world music. Associated with Germans and
Poles, it's deemed "too square" to get the same love and respect that, for
example, Celtic/Irish music gets among today's rockers. It's a shame,
because there's nothing livelier or more suited to partying than a polka.

"In Heaven There Is No Beer" (#32) is one of those songs that everyone knows
the words to. A simple, four-line verse with an easy rhyme scheme (AAAA)
means anyone can create their own versions. And it seems everyone has -
Brave Combo, The Pogues, assorted college marching bands... Perhaps the
earliest recorded version belongs to the great Frankie Yankovic, in an
arrangement by his protégé Joey Miskulin.


Here's Frankie Yankovic's version, and a "klezmerpunk" version from Brave Combo.

Frankie Yankovic: In Heaven There Is No Beer (mp3)

Brave Combo: In Heaven There Is No Beer (mp3)

Another great, traditional polka is the "Beer Barrel Polka" (inexcusably left off the list, in my opinion). Based on a nineteenth century melody, it was given its current form by Czech composers Jaromír Vejvoda and Eduard Ingris in the 1920's. It was an instrumental known as the Polka of Modřany, and got its first lyrics in 1934 from Václav Zeman. His words made it a song about unrequited love, which really doesn't go well with the lively tune.

The song became a hit when a German version was published in 1938. The
English lyrics, that we all know and love, were written by Lew Brown and Wladimir Timm the next year. The Andrews Sisters had a smash hit with it almost immediately. Many others would follow with their own renditions (even the Grateful Dead recorded it!), making it perhaps the best selling polka of all time. And why not? After all, it's about a keg party, right?


Here are the Andrews Sisters showing why The Supremes were the Andrews
Sisters of the 60s with their version, and an instrumental version for two
banjos by Roy Clark and Buck Trent."

Andrews Sisters: Beer Barrel Polka(mp3)

Roy Clark and Buck Trent: Beer Barrel Polka(mp3)

Pink Elephants

Gonna take you into the weekend with a little French today. I'm all Scooter'd out.

I probably don't need to do much in the way of introduction to Serge Gainsbourg. He's a dirty bugger, and you know that. Filthy, really. Sexual deviant, ladies man, drinker of reknown, and icon of cool.

Gainsbourg's song "Intoxicated Man" came in at #26 on the Top 100 Drinking Songs List . It's a sleazy riff on a familiar delirium tremens trip. The translated lyrics are, well, a bit lost in translation, but the beat noir groove and Gainsbourg's typically lecherous, smoky delivery conveys a veritable pink elephants on parade vibe. It's trashed decadence at it's finest, as only Gainsbourg could deliver.

As a bonus we've tossed in some time Bad Seed, Mick Harvey's English-language (sorta) version. Why? 'Cuz we like Mick Harvey, and he released two fine Serge Gainsbourg cover albums, well worth your time.

Recommended reading: "Under The Volcano" by Malcolm Lowry.


Serge Gainsbourg: Intoxicated Man (mp3)

Mick Harvey: Intoxicated Man (mp3)

Please support you local, independent, French winery.

Four Dollar Pabst

Hey Bartender!

We're actually having a crossover today with our parent site, Big Rock Candy Mountain. But fear not, the songs below are unique to Barstool Mountain, and are still the booze-besotted tunes you expect from this here joint.

Did you book your tickets for Chicago this weekend? The big news of the hour: we've got a swell show coming up on Friday, July 6th, brought to you by yours truly, Songs:Illinois, and Can You See The Sunset From The Southside, the three finest tastemakers in the Chicagoland area.

For 5 measly bucks, you get three bands and entrance into the finest dive in the South Loop, the legendary Cal's (400 South Wells), where the booze is cheap, the women are cheap, and the men are free (hell, they'll pay you). It's a Big Rock Candy Mountain kind of joint.

Who's playing, you ask? We've got Satellite 66 from the great land of Chicago. We've got Frontier Ruckus from Michigan, who Craig from Songs:Illinois recently gushed about.

And finally, we've got recent Chicago transplant, The Gunshy, who I think is the bee's knees.

Combining a little Tom Waits, a smidge of Eric Bachman/Crooked Fingers, and a mesa-top full of burnt desert filtered through urban neon sprawl, the Gunshy play a gritty Western noir through the greasy windows of your favorite Old Style bar.

Show starts at 10 p.m. Come by and look for the red-headed stranger in the John Deere cap (that'd be me, the walking stereotype).

"$4 Pabst" is a classic in the making.

The Gunshy: $4 Pabst (mp3)

The Gunshy: My Nicotine-My Whiskey (mp3)

Please support your local rock'n'roll band, and the dive bars that love them.

Green Bottles

Hey there. We've got our first guest poster today, with a fine and dandy drinking song to share and rant about. Everybody welcome Tom from La Dimension De Trastos. Take it away Tom:

"First, the caveat: I know very little about Gang Green. I’ve only heard a small percentage of their catalog, and never seen them live. I’ve never read their bio and I don’t know any of their names. So why the hell would I prop them up as some sort of contemporary torchbearers of the drinking song? For the same reason I basically don’t know shit about them. Until very recently, I had only heard them while stinking drunk. There was simply no need for peripherals.

Unlike the cry-in-your-beer variety, or even "happy" drinking songs, Gang Green gets to the point. And the point is, rather their point is, to get thoroughly trashed. Not tipsy, buzzed, loaded or any other semi-apologetic state of drunkenness. Just full-on, "fuck my job, fuck my boss, fuck my landlord and while I’m at it, fuck your landlord too"-type drinking.

Their image is crudely but effectively crafted, heavy on the beer references. I’m sure that’s what initially attracted me. It’s not hard to sell a record to an alcoholic if it’s about drinking and has five different images of Budweiser on the cover. (I know there’s five because when I was drunk I got out the trusty Sharpie and circled them; probably so I could spot them when I sobered up.)

While their music is atypical drinking music to most (one part skate culture, one part hardcore, a little metal and four cases of Budweiser), to a particular type of drinker it is drinking music at it’s most potent. To wit, a sample lyric (from "Alcohol"): "I’d rather drink than fuck!" It isn’t likely that a more declarative drinking statement exists. No, this is not music for lounge lizards, barflies or the anthropological "let’s go to a dive bar" drinkers. It is the soundtrack for eviction parties (best peppered with "ashtray-missed-your head by that much," "if you’re going to waste it, throw a whole can," and "why are there footprints on the wall?" type conversation).

So, honestly, I’ve resisted the urge to learn anything more about Gang Green other than what I’ve come across incidentally. To analyze their music (including this introduction) goes against their very substance. Luckily, effects can be neutralized. Talk to the guy hovering by the keg with the giant cup. He will debrief you."

Gang Green: Alcohol (mp3)

Gang Green’s MySpace page (Four downloads. Recommended: "Alcohol" and "LDSB" ["Lets Drink Some Beer"]:

Gang Green’s Official Site

I Like Beer

Yum.

Tom T. Hall's "I Like Beer" came in at #47 on the Top 100 Drinking Songs list.

It's a swell tune, if not the most subtle of songs. Heck, the title pretty much says it all. We'd only have one quibble. We think that whiskey is just fine, thank you. And vodka certainly serves an important purpose in the world.

We'll let the song and the lyrics speak for themselves. We do indeed like beer.

"In some of my songs I have casually mentioned
The fact that I like to drink beer
This little song is more to the point
Roll out the barrel and lend me your ears

I like beer
It makes me a jolly good fellow
I like beer
It helps me unwind and sometimes it makes me feel mellow
(Makes him feel mellow)

Whiskey's too rough champagne costs too much
And vodka puts my mouth in gear
This little refrain should help me explain
As a matter of fact I like beer
(He likes beer)

My wife often frowns when we're out on the town
And I'm wearing a suit and a tie
She's sipping vermouth and she thinks I'm uncouth
While I yell as the waiter goes by

I like beer...

Last night I dreamed that I passed from the scene
And I went to a place so sublime
All the water was clear and tasted like beer
Then they turned it all into wine

I like beer...
(Yes he likes beer)"

Tom T. Hall: I Like Beer (mp3)

Please support your local brewer.