Americana Music Reviews

 

Two Dollar Pistols
You Ruined Everything
Yep Roc Records
by Steve Cooper

This is the fourth album from North Carolina's Two Dollar Pistols, but only their second all-originals, all-the-time release. The Two Dollar Pistols' fine debut album, 1997's On Down the Track on the tiny Scrimshaw label, burst onto the Chapel Hill's fledgling, alt-country scene, almost immediately lending legitimacy to the area's "Austin East" pretensions. Lead singer and songwriter John Howie, Jr. is such a deep, resonant, convincing, vocal presence, he sounds like he was born and raised on Ernest Tubbs' front porch, all the while being fed pureéd testosterone. The guy must have the diaphragm of an elephant. Imagine the Ravens' Jimmy Ricks singing honky-tonk and you'll have some approximation.

The Two Dollar Pistols followed their debut with a highly acclaimed live album Step Right Up! in 1998. It is a compelling mix of originals and covers, especially on a superb take of Tubbs' "Thanks A Lot." The Pistols began touring with another Chapel Hill tonker, Tift Merritt, and the combination of Howie's bass voice and Merritt's soprano twang was so winning they took it to the studio and recorded a 7-song EP called, strangely enough, The Two Dollar Pistols With Tift Merritt. The popularity of the EP not only launched Ms. Merritt's solo career, but also put Mr. Howie and the boys in line to return to the studio, this time on Chapel Hill's Yep Roc label.

Recorded at the Mebane, NC studio of Southern Culture on the Skid's lead man Rick Miller, You Ruined Everything finds Howie and his boys (Scott McCall on guitars, Neal Spaulding on bass, Mark Weaver on drums) in double-fine form -- anything but "ruined." All songs are written by John Howie and dig into the same countrytonk-with-pop-tinges quarry previously dug by such as the Derailers, the Mavericks, and Dwight Yoakam. Which is pretty fair company.

The title track, a walking-bass tune of love and loss, leads off. Clyde Mattocks of the Super Grit Cowboy Band provides able support on pedal steel, while Pistol guitarist Scott McCall takes a nice solo on acoustic six-string. It is a sure-handed, choice country cut, and easily radio-ready. Pistol percussionist Mark Weaver's smashing cymbals lets the listener know this is country with some "alt" to it. And Howie's voice...it is deeply, sonorously expressive, and quite agile for a "bass man." Let's just put it on the line --John Howie, Jr. just may have the best voice in all of alt-country. He's at least in the top five.

"Gettin' Gone" is a country-pop wonder featuring some elegantly-ringing, electric 12-string from Scott McCall. The bouncy, banging beat and jangly 12-string bring to mind the great lost band of '80s cowpunk, the Long Ryders. Howie, as ever, vocally nails it. Not one hitch in his giddy-up, not one wrong in his get-along. The lyrical content, like every single song on this album, is about love lost: "Someday I will hear your name/And not feel so asha-a-amed/I won't be alone/I will walk right up to you and say/'Is everything okay?'/I'm-a gonna' be so strong/But right now I'll be gettin' gone." Put this one on "repeat play."

Other stalwart Howie heartbreak compositions on You Ruined Everything include "That Someone Isn't Me," "I Can See It In Your Eyes," "I Will," "In My Mind," and especially "All the Good's Gone." The latter is a slow-burn weeper with Howie turning in a masterful, now-moaning-now-shouting vocal. And, when he hits the low notes, he hits the lo-o-o-o-ow notes. This may be the tear in the beer, but it's a tear that sizzles and simmers amid the carbonation.

Another tune that must be singled out is "All I Can Think Of Is You." It's a smooth, mature, Ray-Price style crooner, with some nice Floyd Cramerish piano tinkling from guest key pounder Chris Bess of Southern Culture on the Skids. "So if you hear us on the radio/Just sing along/'Cause I know that you forget me when the music's gone/But you inspired my last six songs/All I can think of is you." Yeah, it's another torch song. Some reviewers of this album have pointed to this dogged, single-subject lyricising as a weakness of the album. To me, it's a bounty of understandable uniformity. After all, when a man's heart is broken, he tenaciously, fiercely dwells on it, like a hypochondriac and his latest ache.

Strong songs, great singing, solid picking -- the Two Dollar Pistols and John Howie are on the verge of big things (Americana-cally speaking). Nashville will probably never come calling, though. Howie isn't near pretty enough and is more than a little too coon-ass for their taste (or lack thereof). Once again, Nashville's loss is Americana's gain.

www.twodollarpistols.net

 
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