6
Aug
This is sort of a Lucero primer. I have made many Lucero CDs over the years to turn people on to their music. Today I decided that I would be lazy and simply make three one hour playlists and post them here. Now I can simply give people a URL instead of spending time making plastic discs that people just rip and file away somewhere. Three one hour playlists turned into four playlists as I decided to toss in some of Ben Nichols’ solo work as well as some tracks from his prior band Red 40. I enjoyed putting these together and I hope you will enjoy listening to them. You can get all of the music here, on the original discs, from the Lucero Store. In fact you should pop over and order everything while you listen. I tried, and most likely failed, to put the tracks in order of their original release so that as you listen you can see how the band grew and how their style became what it is today. Enough rambling, on to the music…
I chose “Cowboy Emo” as the name of this compilation due to a rumor of the conversation between Ben and Brian that laid the groundwork for Lucero. I won’t bore you with the whole story but rumor has it that Brian described the music he wanted to play as “Cowboy Emo” during that conversation. I don’t think there’s much emo and not much cowboy in the music but it’s a fitting title nonetheless. The track archives have proper id3 tags and even some horrible cover art I threw together so they should drop nicely into iTunes or whatever you use. There’s even a code snippet you can use to embed these tapes on your own blog if you want!
This first tape has songs from the first four Lucero albums:
- Tracks 1-3 are from the Attic Tapes which was recorded prior to the release of their first album. I have heard this was around 1999 but that could be wrong.
- Tracks 4-7 are from the boys self-titled release on Madjack from 2001.
- Tracks 8-13 are from Tennessee released in 2002. Coincidently the first Lucero song I ever heard “Sweet Little Thing” was from this album.
- Tracks 14-17 hail from That Much Further West which was described by Rolling Stone as “The country album Paul Westerberg never wrote…”. This album was released in 2004.
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Tape 2 shows the growth of this band. Only having a line-up change once and going back to the original line-up has proved to be a strong point for the boys. They have grown together musically and listening to Ben’s lyrics mature from fleeting romances to deep desires has been a pleasure over the years. Of course he hasn’t stopped writing songs about drinking either but even those have a touch more maturity to them. Any band that’s been together as long as they have either sounds the same as they did at first or they grow. Lucero took the second route and each album is a little different but after a while you can still tell when there’s a Lucero song on even if you hadn’t heard it before. The first time I got to see them play live it was on the tour supporting Nobody’s Darlings and I have seen them every chance since.
- Tracks 1-5 are from Nobody’s Darlings released in 2005.
- Tracks 6-11 are from Rebels, Rogues, and Sworn Brothers released in 2006
- Tracks 11-14 are from the yet to be released 1372 Overton Park which is due out in October ’09
- Tracks 1-4 are from Dreaming in America (You should by the DVD as well).
- Tracks 5-8 are from their session at Ardent Studios in Memphis.
- Tracks 9-12 are bootlegs from a show on Feb 5, 2009 at Ottobar.
- Tracks 13-16 are bootlegs from a show on March 14, 2009 at Black Cat
- Track 1 is from All Aboard: A Tribute To Johnny Cash. Ben’s song is not the only reason to get this album but it sure doesn’t hurt either.
- Tracks 2-4 are from Ben’s recent solo effort The Last Pale Light In The West released in 2008.
- Tracks 5-9 are from a show Ben did with Cory Branan some time back. Track 5 is a cover of a bad ass but lesser know Replacements tune.
- Tracks 10-14 are Red 40 tracks. Their whole effort as a band is available on a single album and it’s worth owning. While not the same sound as Lucero it’s some pretty fun pop punk.
Tape 2 Track Archive
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This tape is live Lucero. You really can’t experience what a Lucero show is like just listening to tracks recorded live but hopefully this will inspire you to go out and see them because their music is amazing but their live shows are a whole lot more.
Tape 3 Track Archive
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This last tape is Ben Nichols playing solo, you can hear Cory Branan on a couple of tracks, and stuff from Ben’s band prior to Lucero which was called Red 40. Ben’s solo album “The Last Pale Light In The West” is an amazing album and a bit of a departure from the standard Lucero fare but I think the tracks on this tape will show that it’s a must buy for anyone who likes Lucero.
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Comments
An introduction to Lucero, which returns to Tampa Bay this November 13 | Daily Loaf on 08.10.2009
[...] live Lucero, Ben solo as well as some material from Ben’s band before Lucero, Red 40. So go check it out. var linkwithin_site_id = 36185; (function () { var elem = document.createElement('script'); [...]
Cowboy Emo « Perfect Lines on 08.10.2009
[...] post on Tampa’s Creative Loafing about the band. The piece was more sizing up/summarizing a “Lucero for begginers” mix by Romeo Sid Vicious, who chose to name his online mix “Cowboy emo.” Romeo explains further: I chose [...]