The Gobblers Knob

Bobby Bare Jr. performing at the Longhorn Saloon in Ft. Worth, TX 8/7/09.

This post was originally going to be all about my recent trip to the Longhorn Saloon in Ft. Worth, TX to catch Bobby Bare Jr. and The Legendary Shack Shakers. But, things have taken a turn since I listened to the album I purchased that night when leaving the show (more on that in a bit). I was expecting a lot, as Bare Jr. had provided what was perhaps my favorite set from last year’s ACL Fest. The show was fantastic and he rocked much harder than he did last fall. In Austin, lap steel and even a trumpet made appearances, this time it was straight-ahead, propulsive rock. In the midst of a stretch where that bill performed 8 or 9 straight nights in different cities, Bare Jr still tore the joint apart as if we were the only “crowd” he had played for in some time (I used quotes around the word crowd, as there was an extremely poor turnout for the beginning of Bare’s opening slot).

Bare broke out some old material like “Blew Me Off”, from his previous band Bare Jr., to songs from his work with the Young Criminals Starvation League like “Uh Woh Oh”, “Valentine”, “Stop Crying”, ”Flat Chested Girl From Maynard” (which he said was about a skinny keyboard player that broke his heart) as well as the set closing number, “Rock and Roll Halloween”. With many of the old favorites represented in teh set-list, it was a song that I didn’t recognize from his catalog that intrigued me a great deal, none the less. At the end of “I Need You”, Bare told the crowd (no quotes around the word crowd at this point, since the club had packed a few more in) that the song was an America cover and would be on his new EP. He continued to explain that the EP was “a bunch of covers of America and Bread songs, if you don’t like America or Bread, you aren’t going to like my new EP, probably“. After the set, I chatted with Bare and he successfully talked me into buying the new EP, aptly titled American Bread.

The pic of Bare Jr. inside of the new EP, American Bread.

American Bread is an absolute revelation. For anyone who digs his more punk, raucous numbers, you may find yourself scratching your head a bit at first. Produced and crafted with help from David Vandervelde, Bare’s vocal performance is his most reserved and restrained to date, but it also shows off a subtle power that can sometimes be hidden when he is shredding a tune like “Nothin’ Better to Do” or “The Heart Bionic”. The aforementioned, “I Need You” is the true standout performance for me, thanks to the restraint that hints at madness possibly lurking behind the seemingly calm facade of Bare’s vocal. While “A Horse With No Name”, which is well done in a minimal, almost trance like state, was an obvious choice to include on such an album - maybe too obvious, really – “Sister Golden Hair” is even more obvious. A version of Bare covering that track has made the “blog-rounds” in the last year or two, so it is interesting to see that Bare included two takes of the classic tune to close out the album. The “Alpha version” takes a laid back and gentle acoustic approach while the “Beta version” grabs that acoustic guitar and smashes it to peices with a plugged-in fervor that many Bare Jr. fans will recognzie rather easily.