Gina Villalobos is an excellent singer-songwriter from California. Her recent release, Days on Their Side, is without a doubt one of the best records of the year. I recently had a chat via e-mail with her. I have no doubt that you’ll want to run out and pick up her latest, after you read this…

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G.K. - Songs like “Mortified” and “Take a Beating” are very raw and seemingly confessional in the sense that the lyrics are pleas for love and acceptance. What’s tougher, sharing these thoughts on a record with the listener, or expressing such needs to the lover in question?

Gina – Typically I don’t know what I am saying until I have finished a song, and a lot of the time the meaning of the lyrics is beyond the lyrics, if you know what I mean. It’s what is said in the space in between them… then the listener projects their own meaning into the words or the image. When I project my meaning  into the song “Take a Beating” I am hearing a story about my expression of love, not a plea for it. It’s a love song – a me and you against the world song. The basic message is - I wouldn’t want to go through the beatings life has to offer with anybody else but you.

I don’t think how a song hits you is coming from just the lyrics. The lyrics are just one layer, one color in the pallet. It’s like a painting. I get to communicate with rhythm and melody, and instrumentation, tempos, what key a song is in, intros, outros, will the song have a bridge etc, etc. It’s all color. I think it’s all inflicting meaning and sentiment into the songs. It’s about how all these elements work together on the canvas. One wouldn’t just be struck by one color in a Van Gough painting, it’s about how they all swirl together on the canvas. I think songs are the same things, like paintings – tangible things you can see – like pictures.
 

As far as what’s tougher sharing or expressing it’s kind of hard to answer that part of the question because it doesn’t really apply to the way I work or make my art.

G.K. - As I indicated above, your work seems to be emotionally driven and raw. When dealing with such intensity, how do you focus that energy into the final product of a song?

Gina -  I have no idea!  Personally, I believe that an artist doesn’t often hold the key to unlock the mystery or their own art. My songs are something that just come through me and when they do I don’t judge them, or analyze them. I just let them be what they are and let them come out of me however they want. This is what I think makes art “art”.  It’s an unconscious receptacle for everyone, including the artist (me).

G.K. - “Days on Their Side” has a very cohesive sonic vibe throughout the album, in my opinion. Were these songs written intentionally as a collection?

Gina - They were written over a two year period, but they were produced and arranged to have a cohesive sonic vibe. My favorite part of making music, being a musician is being in the studio. I love arranging and experimenting. It’s a real challenge to go back and try to come up with a completely different version of the same song with carry over something from the original version. I worked up several different versions to a few of these songs before they all finally sounded cohesive to me.

G.K. - I Live in Texas and many Texas-based artists discuss how they feel that Texas is a fertile area for creating and a great environment for artists. You are based in California, do you find a similar connection to the SoCal region in terms of creating and performing?

Gina – That’s interesting to me. I think if you asked me this question 10 years ago I would have had a different answer. For me, if I were to guess - because it’s all a mystery to me - I would say it’s my life experiences over environment that make me feel fertile as an artist. I have written lots of my songs far away from CA.

G.K. - On your facebook page recently, you posted a review of the new record and went on to express your gratitude towards the writer for having compared your work to that of other songwriters, who happened to be male, and not simply comparing you to other female artists. Why was that significant for you as an artist?

Gina - Oh my god, I was thrilled and I love when that happens! Some of my faves have been Bob Dylan and Neil Young. I just think there are so many more options as far as other artists to be compared to when you include both female and male artists, and then the reader can get a better since of your music, hello! 

Like for example, if you were house hunting and your real estate agent was describing this house he or she wanted you to see and it was a white house, and he only compared it to just the other white houses he knew of. There might be something totally similar inside the white house that is comparable to something inside the brick layed house but you wouldn’t get a chance to hear about that because…well…. you are only getting compared to the white houses.  Tangent!!  Sorry…

I honestly don’t think my music sounds very “chick rocky”, it’s kind of tom-boy, not very proper.

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Gina Villalobos will be touring around California (and hopefully beyond soon) to support her “Days on Their Side” album. Please make sure you go see her and purchase the album as soon as humanly possible.

Best Live Album EVER??? DBT at ACL.

The title here is a bit misleading. 2009 has turned out to be a really solid year for the entire Drive By Truckers group, actually. What’s really unique about this scenario however, is that DBT and Patterson Hood will end up with 1,2 maybe 3 albums on many year-end lists, all without releasing a proper Drive By Truckers album of new material. Another interesting element to this trend is that we are seeing these albums released in a short span of time – June through September – and not spread out as much over the entire year. So, if the entire year will not end up belonging to the powerhouse group from the south, the summer sure has.

Hood’s solo LP, Murdering Oscar (and Other Love Songs) kicked things off in June. I wrote about my enjoyment of it back then and had no problems calling it my favorite album of June, which was packed with great releases. Basically, Hood keeps doing here what he does so well with his main gig, and I have no problem with that.

Drive By Truckers – Live from Austin, TX is the document of their first ever appearance on the seminal TV series. It’s not a shocker to me that a band that rules the stage in a live setting had virtually no problem with ruling the storied stage of ACL. The release is a CD/DVD combo, and while that sounds awesome, something was sorely missed as the collection was put together. On the CD, we get all 11 plus, goosebump inducing minutes of “18 Wheels of Love”, which included more back story on the song itself, as told through Hood’s infectious, everyday way of spinning a yarn. The DVD of the performance had merely the 3 minutes or so of the actual singing portion of the tune, completely stealing the emotion and revelry that would’ve been great on video. That said, it’s still an amazing disc that captivates even the most ardent, longtime fan who has heard these songs a gazillion times.

The most intriguing of the releases for me, is The Fine Print.  Out on Sept 1st, a “collection of oddities and rarities“, these tunes didn’t make it onto a proper DBT release, yet what was seemingly material for the cutting room floor for them would’ve been a career highlight album for most other bands that aspire to be the next DBT. Also noteworthy is the track “TVA”, which serves as a warm, fuzzy and freshly opened time capsule for fans of Jason Isbell’s time with the Truckers. It’s a classic, predominantly acoustic tune where Isbell’s story simply and tenderly recalls a time where there wasn’t shame in looking to the government for help as the backdrop for artfully told instances of sepia-toned childhood memories. ”George Jones Talkin’ Cell Phone Blues” is the first cousin of  “Carl Perkins Cadillac”. The closing number is a rousing, all-for-one version of the Dylan classic, “Like a Rolling Stone” that rally captures their group dynamic in a way that other tunes from previous albums have failed to do.

“Pollyanna”, from Hood’s Murdering Oscar album -