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I have to admit that this intro was a little harder than I expected to put together. I am a big fan of Drag The River or I wouldn’t be slapping these tunes up here for people to get to know the band but wow the history here is daunting by itself. Couple that with the amount of work produced by the band and its members and I had a pretty huge project staring me in the face. Of course I didn’t let that stop me from putting together a set of tapes that will hopefully show the band’s growth as well as their history. I should make it clear that I didn’t even try to find music from everyone who has been in this band and simply pulled from own collection. That may be a little lazy but if I had tried to track down a little from every single member this intro wouldn’t have come out until next month. So we all just have to make do with I had laying around and hopefully three tapes will be enough to make anyone go out and track down the full DTR catalog as well as the works of all the members current and present.

This first tape is all Drag the River all the time. The first three tracks are off of Hobo’s Demo’s (2000) which was recorded in ’96 and ’97 at the Blasting Room in Ft Collins, CO. Chad Price and Jon Snodgrass played and/or sang on all the tracks and a slew of other musicians in and out of the studio such as Chad Rex, Paul Rucker, and Zach Boddicker. This session also produced Chicken Demo’s (2004) which tracks 7 thru 9 hail from but which was released after Closed. (2002) which is where tracks 4 thru 6 can be found. I decided on release order for this one and freely admit it was an arbitrary decision. The next three tracks, if you managed to keep up through the above mess of a description, come from It’s Crazy (2006) and track 10 is the first DTR track I ever heard and the one that caused me to fall in love with this band. Tracks thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen all make an appearance on You Can’t Live This Way (2008) and the last three tracks can be found on Bad at Breaking Up (2009). This does not represent the full catalog of releases as there have been EPs and other appearances along the way but I feel it covers the major releases for DTR and gives a good solid overview of the band as a whole.

The next tape, much to my dismay, only has one track from the whole band live. I was shocked to discover I hadn’t collected much live DTR and will have to remedy that in the near future. This tape is mostly Jon Snodgrass live and couple off his Visitor’s Band solo release. That covers the last track and the all the middle tracks but the first two tracks are Chad Price live and are well worth listening to. Chad’s has his first solo effort in the breech and ready to fire over at Suburban Home (there’s even a single track sneak peak) and I really wish I had more of him to put on this tape but woe and alas it is what it is.

I almost didn’t make this last tape, and then after making it almost didn’t post it but decided it was a neat look at the forces that created DTR and the history of, admittedly only a small few, the band members. These are all tracks from the bands that the members of DTR played in prior to forming DTR with the exception of tracks seven, eight, and nine which are from Chad Rex and the Victorstands gravity works fire burns. The first three tracks are from Armchair Martian which was a Jon Snodgrass punk band. The next three are from the Karl Alverez days with All, yet another punk band, which was the kicking, screaming, live-birth of the Descendants when Milo Went To College. These three tracks are off of Allroy’s Revenge. The last three tracks are also from All but feature Chad Price and are from Mass Nerder. While not even close to a complete rundown of all the bands that the members of DTR have played in this tape should serve as a decent overview of the history and the roots of Drag The River. Since it is, according to Jon, “Chad’s and my band” I think I captured the history of the driving forces behind the alt-country powerhouse that is DTR.

With such an amazingly dynamic lineup over the years I can’t do justice without listing the members, past and present, and tossing some links out to any current projects they may be working on and any projects that may have passed away but still have some internet presence left hanging around. So without further ado, and according to wikipedia (which may be wrong) I present Drag The River’s members:

• Chad Price (Current): All, Drag The River, Solo
• Jon Snodgrass (Current): Armchair Martian, Drag The River, Solo
• J.J. Nobody (Current): The Nobodys, Drag The River, JJ Nobody and the Regulars
• Zach Boddicker (Current):Drag The River
• Chris Pierce (Current): Drag The River
• Dave Barker (2005-2007): Pinhead Circus
• Casey Prestwood (2005-2006): Hot Rod Circuit
• Paul Rucker (1996-2005): Armchair Martian
• Karl Alvarez (1997-2002): All, Drag The River
• Chad Rex: Solo

And of course the standard linkage:

Suburban Home Records
Drag The River Homepage
Drag The River Myspace
Drag The River on PunkNews
Prior Drag The River Coverage on 9b
Drag The River on Wikipedia

This one is brand new and is a tribute to my best friend. I ain’t always been there for her like I shoulda been but we’ve made it through the rough patches and come out the other side. There are some who might say a guy can’t have a chick for a best friend and not want to sleep with her and for some guys that might be true but I’ll tell you honest that those bastards are missing out. Enough of an introduction. Click play already…

You see I met An-g quite by accident. She didn’t hang out with my crowd, didn’t go to the same shows, and didn’t really know the same people. She was still in high and I was a drop out who was almost old enough to drink. I had this friend, who shall remain nameless, whose boss wanted him to take her daughter out. My boy was a little bit nervous about this whole boss’s daughter thing so he set it up as a double date with me as the second guy and an ex of his that I thought was cute as my date. I talked him into going to this little joint where a friend’s band was playing for the date since he had told me a little bit about the girl he was picking up. Understand this was not an acoustic singer/songwriter show this was Bleachbath and Excess Lettuce playing a dive where anyone could drink as long as you acted cool. This was not a yuppie show by any stretch. So we pick up my date who comes out in what appears to be a prom dress. I look down at my jeans with holes in them, my white t-shirt, and doc martens and decide this likely won’t go all that well…Next we pick his date, the boss’s daughter, a waif of a thing comes bounding out the front door in a white shirt, jeans, combat boot, and a green mohawk. I think my boy and I were convinced we had the wrong dates at this point but we stood where we stood. An-g jumps in the car, explains the faded green mohawk was due to Manic Panic sweating out at the Bouffant Jellyfish show the night before and it had looked better. While I didn’t see it I am willing to bet my boy rolled his eyes right about there.

Well we get to Pik ‘n’ Pak early enough to chat with Vince (singer for Bleachbath) and the owner Ralph, eat a couple empenadas, and grab some beer. The show was bad ass to say the least, and IIRC it was Bleachbath’s last show as Bleachbath, and my boy got along quite well with my date which didn’t bother me at all as I hit it off with An-g. I guess I was attracted to her that night and maybe over the next couple of years but it wasn’t long before she was one of the guys. She could drink with the best of us and would throw down at the drop of a hat. Not a single dude we ever hung out would have wanted to lay hands on her!

There’s a lot of history between An-g and me, maybe enough for a book, but I think that’s enough of the story to explain why my Monday compilation is a tribute to my best friend. She’s pretty bad ass and it’s a damn shame most of you will never get a chance to meet her.

This is one I made before I started using mixwidget (the cool tape thing that plays the compilations) and posted on facebook. I am in the process of converting all of the ones I did back then to the neat-o widgety thing since it lets other people embed them other places and to top it off looks really cool.

So there you have it. A couple of the bands on here aren’t around anymore. They were bands that friends of mine played in so there’s some history on this one but for the most part it was put together just to share the alt country genre with a few friends on facebook.

Track Archive

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Back on July 25th all I said about this one when I posted it was:

Alright in honor of the bandage they used on my elbow (a 4×4) there’s a new mix up: http://bit.ly/bE4ud it’s uninspired…

Of course that was on twitter and you don’t have much room. I had just been treated for a staph infection on my elbow and was in pain and grumpy. They used a medicated 4×4 to bandage me up afterwards and hence 4×4. Ok so that wasn’t much better but it’s all you get…

And of course Track Archive and embed code: