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The Skeeters
The Skeeters
Duck Tape Music
By Jud Block
 Real country music
has gone the way of the Etruscans or so most music critics, purists,
and FM country radio programmers would have us believe; of course,
there are always the hollow promises of the smaller label PR
writers who will ensure you that their latest alt.-country savior
is deserving of the next available space alongside Jennings,
Haggard, and Cash in the Holy Trinity of Country Music. Naturally
this rarely, if ever, is the case, and the group or musician
inauspiciously takes his, her, or their seat at the right hand
of hard earned obscurity. But that is not to say that there is
not actual, honest-to-God-true country music being made out there
- - it's just that you've got to look pretty damn hard these
days to find it. And sometimes those pilgrimages will take you
to faraway places like Northern Alabama, where you'll come across
hard-core believers such as The Skeeters, and your faith will
be renewed.
The Skeeters started out as a cover band playing songs by
Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, Waylon Jennings,
Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, and JJ Cale; and, apparently, Bert
Newton (lead vocals, rhythm guitar); Matt Martin (lead guitar,
backing vocals); Rick Eller (bass guitar, backing vocals); Dan
Barker (piano, organ, Rhoades, harp); and Flash (drums) learned
their lessons well because their debut disc, The Skeeters,
is full of the same roadhouse and honky-tonk country that would
be right at home on stage with any of the aforementioned legends.
Lead singer Bert Newton wrote seven of the eleven tracks on
the CD, and it's his stentorian voice - - which sounds like a
mixture of Waylon, Junior Brown, Johnny Lee, and TG Sheppard
- - that adds a distinctive and classic element to The Skeeters'
style. Their musicianship is also a throwback to that superficially
loose, yet inherently tight, sound that became the signature
of the Outlaw movement; in fact, on a song like "Clydesdales,"
about self-destruction in the wake of a failed relationship,
you'd swear that Tompall himself must've been at the mixing board.
I've got Clydesdales pulling my casket
Jack Daniels, he's diggin' my grave
And the Marlboro man, hell, he's doin' the preachin'
And I's wonderin' if I'd be around if you had only stayed
"Country Pop" is the Skeeters' mission statement.
A big neon-lit fuck you to Nashville and all of its demon spawn
who have made modern country music virtually indistinguishable
from Adult Contemporary. When Texas finally secedes and elects
Chris Wall president, this would have to be the battle hymn.
Well it's tough to be a honky tonk hero
I guess we'll never make it to the top
I'd just as soon stay at ground zero
I'll be damned if I'm gonna sing that country pop
Waylon once said where do we take it from here
Hell, I think some people took it the wrong way
We are takin' back country music
We don't care what Nashville's gotta say
Now, I don't want to paint The Skeeters as one-dimensional;
they are a great country band, but they also have elements of
blues as evidenced by a raucous duet with Bonnie Bramblett on
"Can't Get No Lovin'" and the chitlin circuit meets
Tony Joe White groove of "Blues Flowin' Freely." They
also, surprisingly, have a following among the Jam band crowd,
and on a few musical interludes within songs it is easy to hear
a connection between them and some of the Allman Brothers' tangents.
Like on "Backwoods," an anthem to being Southern and
proud, it begins with a Ray Charles style organ intro, but quickly
evolves into that Outlaw country sound that The Skeeters do so
well. All Redneck Mothers please stand with me and sing:
Well, I've seen mutts and champion breeds
And I've seen hay with no damn seeds
I see the bud that you keep when you're passing out your swag
And if a redneck's what you call me
Then, by God, a redneck's what I'll be
'Cause I've caught hell by the Confederate flag
Hell, I'm backwoods, backwood's a class
And all those dirty hypocrites can kiss my rebel ass
Well there's nowhere else I'd be and since it's up to me
If we gotta leave, I'll be leavin' last
Well, I know you've heard this kind of thing before from Chip
Taylor, but The Skeeters are the real thing. So if you think
Outlaw country died the day Waylon strode off to make heaven
a better place, then pick up a copy of The Skeeters, and
brace yourself for a resurrection.
Buzz on over to www.theskeeters.com
and get your copy of their debut disc, or, as I like to call
it, modern country repellent.
Contact Jud Block at jud-at-rockzilla.net
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