roscoe

i just got eric "roscoe" ambel's new (as in 2004 release; i'm a little slow on the pickup) odds 'n' sods compilation knucklehead and it's great. if you like great songwriting, beery good-time vocalizing, and the rock'n'roll spirit of the sloppy-drunk faces and exile on main st.-era rolling stones crossed with the brooding, rocky side of neil young, you can't go wrong. in fact, imagine the stones hadn't commenced to suck immediately after exile. instead, imagine that they shitcanned mick and hired neil young to be their frontman. that'll give you some idea of what roscoe's gang and the yayhoos, ambel's longest-lived outlets o' expression, sound like. the yayhoos come with the added bonus of splitting the voxxx four ways, the other three being bunn, north carolina's own terry anderson, prolly the most underrated rock songwriter in these united states, as well as ex-georgia satellites frontguy dan baird and _original_ head satellite keith christopher. their 2001 debut, fear not the obvious, was noteworthy for the inclusion of: 1) a song called "get right with jesus" that's about (what else?) kicking somebody's ass; 2) one about hank williams, jr., called "monkey with a gun;" and 3) one that encapsulates my last relationship in a single line: "baby i love you but leave me the fuck alone." their new record should be out any time now.

when they're not being the yayhoos, some of these guys also tour with steve earle. besides all of that, roscoe's also a recording engineer (he twiddled the knobs on crucial sides by the bottle rockets and half of the y'allternative universe), owns a bar down in manhattan's alphabet city, and (if my shakey memory serves) was playing gtr with joan jett the time i saw her wipe the floor with iggy at the old palladium in dallas, ca. '81. if you go to the performances page on his website, you can check out some mp3's of 'scoe singing george harrison covers that'll give you a whole 'nother idea about the "quiet" beatle, as well as assorted roscoe trio, steve earle, and yayhoos wonderment. as roscoe his own self would say, "fuckin' a, it's alright!"