A PARADE OF ONE-LINER BEER REVIEWS

You know that recent time period of about four weeks where Hedonist Jive was too busy to post anything here? Well, we sure weren’t too busy to keep up with the newest and latest in beer-fueled bacchanalia. I’ve built up something of an albatross of beer reviews and photos, so I’m going to spew them loose right here to get caught up. Let’s keep each review to a single pithy line and a score, and if you need any further elaboration while you make your evening drinking or beer-shopping plans, feel free to send me an email or ask for more critical thinking in the comments section.

Here they are, broken out by quartile:

THE TRULY OUTSTANDING

BROUWERIJ CONTRERAS – “VALHEIR DIVERS”: Amazing – fantastic fizzy, hoppy Belgian tripel that was light, zesty, aromatic and fantastically crisp & delicious. 9.5/10.

MIKELLER – “RIS A LA M’ALE”: Superb almond/cherry ale that wasn’t tart in the least but brought the juicy sweet funk like Bootsy Collins and The Brides of Dr. Funkenstein. 9/10.

BROUWERIJ DE MOLEN – “HEL & VERDOEMENIS”: Smoky, amazingly sweet Belgo-Russian Imperial Stout with a little coffee and a lot, lot, lot of booze. 9/10.

RODENBACH – “GRAND CRU”: The world-class masterpiece Flanders Red Ale that everyone else loves and that I had for the, uh, first time a month ago – I am now a raging full-on believer. 9/10.

BEAR REPUBLIC – “APEX”: A casked double IPA that tasted of salted, bitter melon and all things bright and wonderful – loved it. 8.5/10.

THE VERY GOOD

MOYLANS – “WET HOP SESSION”: Delicious, straightforward, draft-only low-ABV pale ale that packed a mountain of wet and fresh Marin County flavor. 8/10.

DESCHUTES – “JUBEL 2010”: I cellared this “once a decade ale” for as long as I could stand – 10 months – and was happy with the delicious toffee, caramel brown sugar, milky latte taste of this bold strong dark ale. 8/10.

ALLAGASH – “HUGH MALONE ALE”: A chewy Belgian-style IPA that smells a bit funky and tastes thick and luscious. 7.5/10.

ANDERSON VALLEY BREWING – “IMPERIAL BOONT”: The “big” version of the world-famous Boont Amber was a weird and rare beast that played up the malts and the flavor, like a big-ABV scotch ale without the peatmoss. 7.5/10.

HOPWORKS – “HUB ORGANIC IPA”: An English-style IPA that finished quite dry and successfully overcame its organic designation. 7/10.

UPRIGHT BREWING – “SEVEN”: Tangy, super-yeasty dry saison in a big fat bottle from surprise Oregon brewer. 7/10.

BRASSERIE CARACOLE – “SAXO BLONDE”: Very Belgian, very fruity, very fresh-tasting blonde ale. 7/10.

THE MIDDLING

OMMEGANG – “CUP O’ KYNDNES”: Smoky peat, chestnut-driven scotch ale that was basic but very drinkable. 6.5/10.

TELEGRAPH BREWING – “ROBUST ALE”: A foamy, bottle-conditioned imperial version of their California Ale that tasted like pear and caramel malts and really just missed my hitting my expectation level by a couple of points. 6/10.

21ST AMENDMENT BREWERY – “HOP CRISIS”: 8% imperial but supposedly (in their description) "malt-driven" IPA that tasted bitter, chalky and way overhopped – this is supposed to be enjoyable? 5/10.

THE LAME

MT. SHASTA BREWING – “ABNER WEED AMBER”: Very basic, thin and uninteresting amber ale that tastes like it was made from a bagged beer kit. 4/10.

ALE INDUSTRIES – “ORANGE SHUSH”: Gross fruity witbier that had to change its name from “Orange Kush”, and now needs to de-market itself entirely. 4/10.

ISLAND BREWING – “IPA”: Thin, chalky and nearly hop-less IPA from the quote-unquote pride of Carpenteria, CA. 3.5/10.

BREWER’S ART – “LA PETROLEUSE”: It’s not you, Brewers’ Art, it’s me, as I'm totally and very obviously missing something here (A- rating on Beer Advocate); a well-crafted bier de garde that came off like a well-crafted garbage macro lager. 2/10.

BOOK REVIEW: “REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE” by Christopher Caldwell

Earth’s last decade has been primarily defined geopolitically by what’s now commonly referred to as “The Clash of Civilizations”, East vs. West, Muslims vs. Judeo-Christians, and so on. Depending on how this stretch of history plays out, the years 2001 to the present will likely be held up by historians as a time when the descendents of the Ottoman Empire attempted, successfully and with stealth, to reassemble the empire in the West. It may be a quiet and unplanned revolution, but it’s a revolution nonetheless, and how Europe (and to a lesser extent, the US) responds to it is a story that’s only growing in magnitude every year. Burqa bans, headscarf bans, minaret bans and increasingly loud disdain for Muslim ways have been on the rise in Europe the past few years. The terror threat from the East continues to be a real fact of life on the ground in Europe, as elsewhere. I was glad to see a book that tried to make sense of it all, how Europe very quickly became a continent of immigrants from outside of Europe, and what it will mean for the 21st century.

And I suppose I should make my prejudices clear before I go further: I’m a huge champion of American immigration in all its forms. My philosophy is that people follow the jobs, and if the jobs are there, let the people come to fill them, whether legal or illegal. If the people abide by the norms and rules of the “host culture”, and don’t expect taxpayer subsidization, then they’ll have no bigger champion than myself. I can envision a time in the future where national borders cease to be meaningful, and I like the sound of a world in which that’s the case. Oh, and I’m also a raging atheist. I also, uh, dislike terrorism very much, and am willing to go out on a limb and culturally profile the perpetrators of 21st-century terrorism as overwhelmingly Muslim. I sympathize with a Europe that sees its liberal traditions and even its physical well-being as being under assault by Muslim immigration, while being bemused and even a little alarmed at the simultaneous withering of those liberal traditions in response to it.

So cutting to the chase, Christopher Caldwell’s recent book, “REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN EUROPE – Immigration, Islam and The West” is a fascinating, if flawed read. If you’d like to get a sense of how Europe got to its current quandary around immigration – a combination of loose rules, half-truths, religious decline, demographic decline, general apathy and a surfeit of political correctness – this is great book to tackle. Caldwell nails the well-meaning approach to immigration in Europe over the past 40 years, and how it rapidly accelerated and started violently confronting European norms about 15 years ago. His best writing regards how Europe slowly woke up to the key differences between Muslim immigration to Europe, and quick-assimilating immigrants to the United States:

The marital behavior of immigrants and their children (not to mention the entire history of colonization) shows that you can migrate to a place while being hostile to it, or at least while holding it in no special regard. Yes, immigrants “just want a better life”, as the cliché goes. But they don’t necessarily want a European life. They may want a Third World life at a European standard of living. They may want to use the cosmopolitanism made possible by Western rule of law to secure citizenship for their nonfeminist brides and their pre-Enlightenment ways.

This is what Europeans are waking up to in all sorts of funny and sometimes even enlightened ways. The Muslim immigrants, by and large, are replicating their home countries’ ways of life, just on European soil, and often at European taxpayers’ expense. Caldwell blames Europeans’ abandonment of their traditional culture, and of Christianity, in favor of the very liberal social consensus that rules the continent now as being part & parcel of why it was so easy for, say, Algerian or Turkish culture to gain such a strong foothold in, say, France and Germany. He loses me when he puts too fine a point on this thread – particularly the religious part. One can admire the values that are attributed to Judeo-Christian traditions, without fully buying into them being divinely inspired (I certainly don’t). If only Europeans got some religion again, he seems to say in various spots, Europe would have an effective bulwark against its centuries-long foe, Islam. I don’t buy it. I think Europe’s secular evolution is one of its post-WWII strengths, and I tend to agree with the assassinated Dutch politician Pym Fortuyn and his protégés, who argued that Europe had created a culture of liberal tolerance, enlightenment and intellectualism that was very much worth fighting for and defending.

Islam has the upper hand as things stand today, at least as portrayed by this book. It knows what it stands for, and it knows what it stands against. It is rapidly gaining in numbers both in Europe and around the globe as European population declines. Caldwell believes, as I do, that “moderate Islam”, while being something that exists for millions of people, is a red herring for cultural relativists who prefer to see peace and harmony where there is actually war, fear and religious antagonism. This will continue to be a signature issue for years to come, and while I found Caldwell’s old-school religious conservatism a little hard to stomach at times, I applaud him still for laying out the boundaries of the problem so clearly.

A ROCK AND ROLL MOMENT FOR THE AGES

I was going through a mementos box that I’ve been keeping for a while, and came across this flyer for an exceptionally memorable rocknroll show I went to in early 1987. I drove five people up from Santa Barbara in my 4-person 1980 Mustang to go see Scratch Acid, but they, mind-melting as they were, were not the real story of the night. The real story was the opening band GROUP SEX, from Nipomo, CA, and their jaw-dropping 3-minute set. In it those of us in attendance witnessed a lifetime’s worth of frustration, rage, love, disco dancing, little people, and the negation of the human spirit.

I recounted this evening in 2005 on my old blog Agony Shorthand, but figured it needed to be told again, since I found the flyer and all:

I think even back in March 1987, I knew I was pretty lucky to have seen SCRATCH ACID play live, not simply because I could sense that they'd break up soon (which they did), but because they seemed fairly groundbreaking in their way even at the time. The show was at a dumpy club in small college town San Luis Obispo, California with two bands I'll have a hard time forgetting: "GROUP SEX" and the "WIMPY DICKS". The latter were some dumb-ass local favorite funnypunk band with songs that ragged on their town, but the former were just on fire the night I saw them.

Whenever someone asks me about memorable shows I've seen -- which, truth be told, never actually happens -- I tell them about Group Sex in SLO, CA. The band came on stage with two identical-twin bearded drummers with full kits, the sort of beer doggie dudes you'd expect to find sucking down Coronas at the Cabo Wabo Cantina, and this boyfriend/girlfriend pair on guitar and bass respectively. (I later learned that their names were "Ron E. Fast" and "Janey"). The two drummers started in together with this ripping-fast hardcore-tempo pattern, and the guitarist started to hiss and feed back and play some generic HC riff. After about 10 seconds, though, someone -- it appeared to be the bass player -- screwed up, with unleashed a torrent of filthy invective from Ron E. Fast ("You motherfucker goddamn sonofabitch whythefuckcan'tyouplay etc."). Janey actually started to blubber and cry right into her mic, and profusely apologized to the crowd.

So the two goofball drummers started up their hardcore beats again, but this time "Fast"'s guitar shorted out or something, and everything ground to a quick halt. He immediately hefted his guitar, and shattered it into a bazillion pieces with one swing against the brick back wall behind the stage. The shocked whole crowd let out a collective "whoooa....", and then Janey just started crying again. She stood there at the mic bawling and shaking, "You don't understand you guys, he's really a nice guy, he really is, we're really a lot better than this, please don't hate us you guys....". Just then, the house lights came up, and the soundman quickly threw on some 1976 vintage disco music, "I Love The Nightlife" or something, and in seconds, Ron E. Fast and Janey jumped from the stage and immediately started disco-dancing together on the now-cleared floor. As everyone stood watching them in total awe, a "little person", also bearded, scampered out from behind the sound board and started picking up the guitar pieces from the floor. It was beyond belief, and they were only the opening band! We ran out to the car immediately to relive and retell the moment over a 6-pack of Mickey Bigmouths. W-o-w.

So thanks for letting me get that tale off my chest; it has only lived on via the oral tradition thusfar, and of course, it was far more weird and ridiculous than it likely reads to you on the screen.

This post received a comment from Ron E. Fast himself in 2008, saying “and i was pissed that the guitar was fuckin up not at janie......were married 25 yrs now”. So in other words, it wasn’t the bass player – his wife – who was having the problems, it was Fast’s guitar, and the “filthy invective” that I remember hearing was entirely self-directed. A magical evening, one that I hope I was able to recreate at some level.

HOLIDAY DRINKING REPORT

I used to get pretty hopped up about Christmas beer season. Before brewers started making experimental and limited-release brews a regular feature of their lineups, the only way to escape the clutches of the yearly pale ale/amber/stout tyranny was the brewer’s annual November/December foray into spiced, malty, (sometimes) higher-ABV holiday beers. Not anymore. These days Christmas beers are, to my way of thinking, often an afterthought, something a brewer needs to do to maintain seasonality and possibly shift few extra units, but rarely are they the best beers you’ll drink all year. The really stellar ones tend not to be “holiday” beers per se, but happen to be dark, heavy and released in the Winter months. So color me a little more jaded than in years past – which doesn’t mean I’m not still gonna try a whole passel of them this year anyway.

Here are three we’ve explored to start off the 2010 winter drinking season:

THE BRUERY – “3 FRENCH HENS” – (pictured above). I’ll happily pay $11.99 or more for any beer THE BRUERY bottles, and that’s what this one set me back. Last year’s “Two Turtle Doves” was a revelation, and it speaks truth to my aforementioned lie about the general decline of holiday beers' quality. This year’s model, to of course be followed by “4 Calling Birds” next year, made me sit bolt upright and declare, “Sweet Jesus It’s Christmas” as I brought the first sip down my throat. It’s 75% “Belgian strong dark ale”, 25% aged in French oak barrels, and it brings a real silky texture with a mix of oriental spices mixed with cinnamon stick. Is it possibly overspiced? Maybe it is. I enjoyed every moment of it except for the three or four when I was asking myself that question. 7.5/10.

NINKASI BREWING – “SLEIGH'R” – They call this one a “dark double alt” and I couldn’t resist, even though of the three NINKASI BREWING beers I’ve tried, only one – “Tricerahops” – was above average (and that one was way above). This has all the ingredients of the classic Christmas beer – nutmeg and spice, dark roasted cocoa taste, but its thin-ish body left me wanting something with a little more oomph. This, alas, wasn’t it. 6.5/10.

ANCHOR BREWING – “OUR SPECIAL ALE 2010” – In San Francisco, where I live, the annual Anchor Brewing “Our Special Ale” is a rite of passage into the new year. You’re just not complete until you’ve tried this year's formulation. More often than not, it’s excellent and sometimes revelatory. Lately it seems to be slipping a bit, however, and 2010’s the worst in recent memory. A bland, uninspiring malt bomb with only a hint of spicing, thin body and even a little aspirin in the aftertaste. What just happened? 4.5/10.

So it’s THE BRUERY in the early rounds for Xmas beer-off 2010. Watch this space for a report on Rounds 2 and 3 as the true drinking season commences.

FABULOUS DIAMONDS – “FABULOUS DIAMONDS II”

It’s sort of incongruent with my growing dependence on pop music (and my back-breaking “back catalog” record, CD and mp3 collection), but one of my favorite bands right now is the trippy dub/psych/jamz duo THE FABULOUS DIAMONDS. Their debut LP in 2008 on Siltbreeze was a stripped-down, echo-laden keyboard-and-drum fest more in line with Augustus Pablo and the 70s dubbers than with anything “modern” – although there was no mistaking them for a rock and roll band. Theirs is a minimalist sound that washes over you in lines and color, repeating itself in earworms that you’d rather take with you than flush out. I was wondering when they’d be getting around to making a new record for me.

“FABULOUS DIAMONDS II” is more lush and noisy than its predecessor, but it’s every bit as good. They don’t pull (or push) any punches in song titling either – each song’s length is its name, (i.e. “12 mins 15 secs” is the number that kicks things off). If you’re a partisan for synth- or keyboard driven pre-punk bands like SUICIDE and SILVER APPLES, I’m guessing you’ll find a lot to love here – but so will the space rockers, dubheads and FALL fans. There a lot of chant-like incantations over the groove, which lyrically won’t make sense to anyone besides the two Australians who are chanting them. To say it’s “hypnotic” is not to succumb to a cliché, because music this repetitious and stretched-out is by definition hypnotic if you’ve already decided to hang on for the ride. In only one place does the band start pooping around too much, and that’s the closing track, which repeats stabbing keyboard noise for about 90%, and when it finally softens a bit to let something resembling a song in, the thing’s over. Bo-ring. But that’s one bum note in a record that doesn’t have any others. I saw them live in 2008 and they were outstanding – let’s hope they can make the trip over from Down Under again and deliver us to the astral plane yet again.

DOGFISH HEAD’s MIGHTY-HYPED “BITCHES BREW”

As I understand it, there’s a new TV program on the Discovery Channel called “BREW MASTERS” that is a beer-centric version of Anthony Bordain’s shows, in which Dogfish Head Brewing’s Sam Calagione travels the globe to create new, increasingly wilder beers using lost or local ingredients. I had heard some whispers of this a while ago; it debuted this past Sunday, and THE DRUNKEN POLACK already has a review – not just of the show, but of the very beer we’re going to be discussing today. I Tivo’ed the program and will likely dig into it over this Thanksgiving holiday. The first episode concerns this very beer, the very limited and very hyped BITCHES BREW.

We can tackle this from all sorts of angles. I can tell you how I think the original Miles Davis record this beer was named after is more than a little overrated, and then you can go into the comments and tell me, “no wayy mang, u r so stupid get ur head out of ur ass”. We can talk about the release of this beer, which was quick and merciless. I think some may still be around, but you’re going to have to hunt – especially after the Discovery Channel show. I bought mine a couple of months ago, made a special trip to CITY BEER in San Francisco just to do so – and they told me I was getting one of the last 2 or 3.

Or – how about this – let’s talk about the beer itself. BITCHES BREW caught me off guard a little. Since it’s made with “honey and gesho”, whatever gesho is, I was expecting a light golden ale. Out comes tumbling an inky, deep black roasted ale that gives off strong indications of hot cocoa and chocolate. There’s some sweetness, and yes, there’s a honey taste as well. This medium-bodied bodice-ripper is right in the Russian Imperial Stout wheelhouse – a big 9% ABV, jet-black and uber-powerful – yet still something experimental and different. Extremely malty, like a milk (not dark) chocolate malt, really smooth, and hey, there really are some mysterious ancient ingredient secrets buried in here. I’m all over this one. 8/10.

“KICK-ASS”

I’m not going to implore you to watch this fun trifle of a film on its cinematic merits - but that said, I’m also not going to get all uppity and pretend that I didn’t really enjoy what was essentially a blockbuster-y superhero movie (or perhaps a parody of same). No, it’s really not something that’s much of a cry from certain other good-vs.-evil adaptations of Marvel and DC Comics. In many ways, “KICK-ASS” reminded me of the Spider Man films, two of which I’ve actually seen. You can’t get that time back once you’ve spent it, can you? Sigh. This one has a picked-on kid who takes matters into his own hands, tries to become super, fails, but gets caught up fighting bad guys anyway, with a big climactic denouement that takes place in a skyscraper, with superheroes soaring through the air in triumph at the end.

No, “KICK-ASS” probably doesn’t stand up for eternity if not for one character, and a far-reaching decision made by the filmmakers. They cast little Chloe Grace Moretz, an 11-year-old pixie who looks like an 11-year-old pixie, into the scene-stealing role of “Hit Girl”, a fantastically violent, horrifically foul-mouthed whirling dervish who pretty much annihilates anything she fights. I read about it beforehand, but it was funnier than anything I imagined. Her first real fight scene is so good I’m going to post a video link to it here. Hit Girl surprises the pretend superhero “Kick Ass” by rescuing him from certain death at the hands of a drug gang. She kicks off her frenzy of garroting, limb-slashing and head-lopping with a what-did-she-just-say, "Okay, you cunts. Let's see what you can do now!". Then she lets loose to the sound of The Dickies’ version of “The Banana Splits Theme”. I think I may have piddled my pants during this particular scene.

Later, when the naïve and dumbfounded “Kick Ass” asks how he can find her in case he needs help again, she mockingly tells him, “You just contact the mayor's office. He has a special signal he shines in the sky. It's in the shape of a giant cock”. It’s funny just writing it – just imagine it coming out of the mouth of an 11-year-old girl who has just flayed several gangsters to a violent, bleeding death. When she’s on screen, this film is great. Otherwise, it’s still kinda fun. Hedonist Jive thinks you might want to check it out.

BOOK REVIEW: “THE RATIONAL OPTIMIST” by Matt Ridley

If I could vainly flatter myself with an all-purpose descriptor of my worldview, I’d probably have busted out something along the lines of “I’m a, uh, rational optimist” before the release of this book. The “rational” part of my character is certainly open for debate, and I’ve certainly been party to sky-is-falling pessimism at times. Yet when I saw this book on the shelves a few months ago, it took only a minute of thumbing through it to know it was coming home with me. And to find out that the science writer Matt Ridley, the guy behind other books on evolution I’ve been wanting to read ("Genome" and "The Red Queen"), was the author – well, it sealed the deal. I have long maintained – thankfully on the basis of acres and acres of evidence – that the lot and fate of mankind is rapidly and dramatically improving. This book takes in the great sweep of human history, and lays the cultural and economic groundwork for why.

In two words, we humans engendered a quantum leap in our collective well being thanks to two concepts that we eventually stumbled onto: specialization, and trade. We fast separated ourselves from lower life forms as a result. Ridley makes a case so convincing for these two facets of human behavior as being central to our rising prosperity that I truly can’t imagine what the rebuttal might be. Markets are the dominant force in human progress, and have been for hundreds of years. Gains come from exchange of goods and services, which make possible gains from specialization in the creation of those goods and services (your talents are traded for some of my talents until we each have things we couldn’t otherwise make ourselves), which in turn make possible technological innovation. In other words, my quote-unquote specialized expertise in marketing high technology products (!), and the products that are purchased as a result, is traded for the specialization of others in medicine, art creation, home building, food production and so on. The less friction applied to these exchanges, the better off we are on both an individual and on a collective basis. Like, duh - right?

This self-evident fact has a long history of struggle with those who’ve seeked to control and plan markets - emperors, dictators and central planning-driven governments - and with those who’ve looked at rising prosperity and living standards and still found nothing but some new disaster lurking around the corner. Or worse, looked at modern life in all of its dynamic complexity, and found it easier to over exaggerate an idyllic time when people were all self-sufficient in catering to their own needs from their own back-breaking efforts, and were far more happy as a result. As the British Ridley says a few times in this book, “Balderdash”. Someone has probably written a book about the often self-sabotaging and pessimistic nature of humanity and how it fits into the larger evolutionary pattern, and if so, I’d like to read it.

Ridley does not discuss something that I’ve also long believed, that our rising standard of living, and the resulting better food nutrition that comes from it, has also helped human to evolve bigger and higher-functioning brains – which continues to perpetuate our collective prosperity and growth as a species. Our innovation perpetuates itself into greater innovation, in search of outsized gains from specialization and trade, and one of the greatest things our chattering classes could do is to embrace this creative destruction and just what it has done for the West and large portions of the East.

If you think this book is just another survival of the fittest libertarian jerk-fest (it’s not in the least - its scope is as wide as human history itself), or have heard that it’s a climate change denial book, let me say that it’s not – though it does convincingly pour water on worst-case scenarios of all stripes and sizes. This is a first class book of social science, arguing with facts and logic on how we got to be so prosperous and healthy as a people, why that pace is accelerating all over the world, and what we as a species can do to make sure it continues to do so in Africa and elsewhere. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read this year and something that I can see changing and/or strengthening a lot of deeply-held worldviews.

CIGAR CITY “110K + OT BATCH #3”

We beer fiends live for the thrill of the hunt, and for the fulfillment of that hunt with treasures that we know are once in a lifetime. You may know of Tampa, FL’s CIGAR CITY BREWING; I certainly do, mostly be reputation. This is a brewer who started out making beers on the proverbial edge of brewing experimentation, and delivered a marketing strategy based on barrel aging and scarcity. Their “Humidor Series” has made many a beer pilgrim weep with unbridled joy. Me, I’ve tried two of their beers so far, both in New York or thanks to the kindness of New Yorkers – JAI ALAI IPA and IMPROVISACION. Both big and beautiful, and both scoring a 7.5 on the HJ scale.

This one also came to me in a trade with MCM, a New York denizen who has supplied me with some of my best east coast discoveries to date. It’s called 110K + OT, BATCH #3 – and according to Beer Advocate, it’s supposed to be a West Coast-style IPA. No friggin’ way. Sure, take a look at my photo – it looks like one: still, silent, thin-headed and a little deadly. And oh yes, it’s very hoppy. But this deep copper brown ale trends far more heavily into the oaked-up, sweet caramel realm – no, make that salty caramels, cooked for hours in a vat full of delicious booze. Yum. It’s a total tongue coater, leaving your taste buds covered in a thick, hearty oak syrup. True genius, made in a small batch one time – and never again. Beers like this is why I’ve turned beer consumption into my most dorkified hobby. 8.5/10.

EERWAARDE PATER, A FUNNY ‘LIL BELGIAN BROWN

We’ve been out of commission here at The Hedonist Jive for nearly a month now, and though we’d ease back in with a beer review of whatever the most recent thing was that we’d tasted. Where have we been, you ask? Where do we start. Work, mostly. Home, a lot of the time – mostly for sleep. I ran a half marathon this past weekend, so there’s that. My reward beer Sunday evening was EERWAARDE PATER, a strong and dark Belgian brown from the heretofore unbeknownst BROUWERIJ HET ALTERNATIEF from Izegem, Belgium. “Alternatief”? Alternatief to what? Let’s find out.

My 7-year-old son says to me, after seeing me repeatedly haul out 22-ounce bombers of rarified ale for solo drinking these past few years, “Wow Dad, that’s a small beer”. I guess I felt a little funny after he said that, and almost went down and pulled up another one. This comes in an 11.2-ounce bottle and was indeed someone of an alternatief to most beers I’ve tried recently. While it’s a brown ale matured in oak barrels, it has some of the heaviest, most acidic fermentation I’ve tasted in years. Are you familiar with kombucha? It’s that sort of acidity – and I’m not saying it’s bad. Perhaps it’s even good for digestion. Tastes are of brown sugar, oak and some maple – and I know there are a lot of foamy beers out there, but this was totally extreme. It’s a live one! Interesting and different, and something that you can probably find in the US at a store with a good Belgian beer selection. 7/10.

A TREATISE ON MAN-CHILDREN, SPORTS MANIA AND THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS

In my heart, I know that the amount of mental energy and actual time I spend following professional baseball – more specifically, the San Francisco Giants – is preposterous. In Christopher Hitchens’ recent autobiography HITCH-22, he makes several typically withering asides about the hours of wasted life and squandered intellectual capital spent by some of his friends & associates watching soccer, or any other children’s game played by a team of highly-paid adults. I can’t say I disagree. I mean, I know people who have freed up a great deal more time in their lives for literature, music, family, film, exercise or what have you, simply by eschewing sports. I even went through a phase like that myself in the late 90s, when my beloved Giants made the ’97 playoffs, and I didn’t even watch a single game. I sure got a hell of a lot done that week – I was in grad school, getting married and doing a bunch of other very, very important things. But when I moved back to San Francisco in 1999, my dormant sports mania went haywire again with the flip of a mental switch, just as it had most of my sentient life up to that point.

There’s something screwy in our DNA that causes us to revere the most athletic of our tribe, and to take a collective interest in their accomplishments. We bizarrely reflect those accomplishments as somehow representative of the cities in which they are achieved. Of course I was raised to be a Giants, 49ers and Warriors fan. Those were my “home teams” (even though I grew up in Sacramento and San Jose). I clutch the 1978 Giants and the 1981 49ers to my figurative bosom very dearly – at the time, those teams and their races to first place were defining events, defining struggles, in my life to date. (Tough life, hunh?). I am proud that other than that brief period in the late 90s, I followed every San Francisco Giants box score each morning from 1977 up to the present day, along with somewhere between 50 and 100 radio or TV broadcasts per year. Mind you, this has been in some years with flat-out awful teams, which makes the very few good years – like 2010 – so psychically rewarding.

But before I start frothing about the team, I want to get back to the absurdity of it all. For me, if I’m going to get into a sport or a team, it’s all in – or nothing. For instance, I jettisoned any interest whatsoever in football years ago – because it took up too much mental space from baseball. I don’t think I can name 5 guys in the NFL right now. Brett Favre? Yeah. Ladanian Tomlinson? I think so. That guy from the New York Giants who shot himself? Yeah, that guy. That’s about it. College sports, I couldn’t care less. Yet when the World Series is over, it will be hockey time. And NBA time. I’m in, all the way – blogs, websites, deep dissection of the daily sports page, podcasts, what have you. If I don’t know the minutiae of every player on my chosen teams – his stats, his playing time, how he did last game – I feel like I’m not doing my “job” as a sports fan, and I worry. And that’s just crazy talk, isn’t it? I marvel at the luxury of time that allows me to do this, and fret at what is being lost in my short time on the planet as I engage in this completely ridiculous man-child pursuit.

Then again, let me admit that it is what it is. “I’m just as God made me”, as the “twisted old fruit” desk clerk says in This is Spinal Tap. That brings me to the San Francisco Giants. These are salad days for the long-suffering Giants fan. We have a totally “loveable” team, as much as athletes can be loveable, who are doing remarkable things, particularly on the pitcher’s mound. I don’t think there are two sports personalities I like in this world more than Tim Lincecum and Pablo Sandoval, despite “Pablo Strand-'em-all”’s propensity for inning-crushing double play balls. (For my guide to pro baseball players from a few months ago, click here). They are overachievers, cobbled together after years of miserable play by faded veterans (which still continues to this day), led by a 23-year-old catcher named Buster Posey, and with a just-barely-21 tobacco-spittin’ country boy pitcher named Madison Bumgarner getting a chance to start in the playoffs. No egomaniac jerk-offs like Barry Bonds, no clubhouse downers like Jeff Kent – and the one that we did have, a failed September experiment named Jose Guillen, was decidedly cast away by management for the duration of the playoffs under the guise of a faux “neck injury”. I love that they cut their losses that way, which has allowed an unlikely hero, the chrome-domed Cody Ross, to emerge this Fall.

The Giants are one win away from the World Series, and they’ll have two chances to get it in Philadelphia this weekend. San Francisco and the greater Bay Area will go absolutely berserk if they do. Admit it, we’re a race of man- and woman-children, hardwired to be this way, and only the truly disciplined among us can overcome this faulty wiring in our DNA. I’ll tally up the lost days and missed opportunities on my deathbed – meanwhile, this is way too fun to miss right now.

LAGUNITAS BREWING’s “LUCKY 13”

Could have sworn I tried this imperial red beer once before, but since I had no real recollection of it and had recently read a glowing review, I decided to throw down for a bottle and give it a go. Petaluma, CA’s LAGUNITAS BREWING already make a jaw-dropping imperial red ale – the, get this, LAGUNITAS IMPERIAL RED – so it stands to reason that another similar formulation might do the trick. Slap a cute girl and a horseshoe on the bottle, mix up the vats a bit, and bingo! Let’s find out how it came together.

LAGUNITAS LUCKY 13 is, as expected, dominated by malts, and has medium hops. A thinner body that expected takes this down a small notch, and gives it a generally less-than-robust sort of feel in the mouth, commonly called “mouthfeel”, wink wink. Taste is light caramel and even a faint woodiness. Drinkability is high, which is pretty standard with all LAGUNITAS beers. They don’t play in the deep end of the pool, but neither are they flailing in the shallow end. I do like this one – I do. I could and will drink it again. Not quite that IMPERIAL RED, which is in a class by itself (which I understand might be defunct??!?? - noooooo), but quite strong. 7.5/10.

WITTE NOIRE!

That’s right, one for me, and another one for me! Have you seen any of these beers in better beer stores that say “The Brewmaster’s Collection”? Would you believe it if I told you they were “unique expressions of the brewmaster’s art”? Well they are. It’s a series of beers put together by DE PROEF out of Ghent, Belgium. I just looked at this lineup, and I’ve had just about all of them – and not one has been a dud. I don’t think I quite realized until last week what a stunning collection of beers they are, honestly. That’s when I tried WITTE NOIRE, an “imperial amber wheat” that blew me away. Allow me to explain.

DE PROEF really have earned the hallowed right to use highfalutin hyperbole like “unique expressions of the brewmaster’s art”. This plumtastic, pruney mouth-rager is outstanding, and well in keeping with the experimental Belgian tradition. It’s a dark amber beer, almost “chesnut” really, and it has this very grape-like, dark fruit (plums) intensity along with a tangy wheat flavor that you might find in a souped-up hefeweizen. They say that there’s even some smokiness going on, and sure, I can buy that as well. It got just as high marks from the two folks I split it with, and I recommend it highly for you to imbibe this evening. 9/10.

WET HOT AMERICAN HEAVY METAL ADOLESCENCE

Here's a re-post of some misty watered-colored memories from my youth, originally posted on my old Agony Shorthand music blog back in 2006.

Cathartically recounting one's ridiculous adolescence has certainly been a cottage industry for years, & my tales are likely not much different than anyone else's. Yet I still can't believe how metal-obsessed my junior high school (John Muir Junior High, San Jose, California) was circa 1979-82, and what ripe material I keep pulling from my memory banks even today. It was a time where the kids who smoked cigarettes on the fence outside the school were the "stoners", also known as "burnouts", and their musical direction set the tone for nearly everyone else's. Except, that is, for mine, and that of a few girls and the odd 13-year-old John Muir attendee who wasn't totally obsessed about rawk. A few anecdotes:

• There was this dude right out of metal hesher central casting named Bobby Garcia, a total badass who started all sorts of fights & would give you a surprise grilling on your musical taste to see if it was up to snuff. He and his pals would go hang out & smoke Camels in an open field with a couple of dirt piles near the Almaden Plaza mall that everyone called "Stoner's Cove". I'm pretty sure very few of these supposed stoners had actually discovered pot yet. In a school with very few blacks, Bobby still made it a point to tell the handful that were around, that, in his words, "AC/DC, Rock and Roll, Disco Sucks and so does Soul". I always loved that, and repeat it whenever I get the chance. Note that AC/DC preceded even rock and roll itself in the couplet. AC/DC were huge at my school - they were the be-all & end-all for most kids, and if you didn't like 'em, you'd better damn well pretend that you did.
• One time Garcia and this other mental giant whose name I forget chased this nerdy guy named Bob Zettlemoyer (I'm serious!) down after Zettlemoyer incorrectly claimed to be an AC/DC fan. With fists held above his face as he was pinned down -- I watched this myself -- they said, "Name two people in AC/DC! Name two, motherfucker!!". It was heartbreaking to watch as a trembling Bob answered "Bon Scott" (technically correct, but everyone knew Scott drank himself to death a couple years earlier) and -- uh oh -- "Led Zeppelin". Ouch. They "whaled on his ass" right then & there.

• The chief radio station of my peers - listen to it or you suck -- was KOME. The station cranked a steady diet of Scorpions, AC/DC, Led Zep and The Who, and had the most inane radio personalities imaginable, totally perfect for the sexually pent-up 13-year-old male demographic. The station is deservedly famous for the tag line, "Don't touch that dial, it's got KOME on it", but I'll admit I never actually heard them say it. Late nights belonged to this clown named "Dennis Erectus", who would go off about his lust for Nancy Reagan in a stupid, unhinged voice that predated Bobcat Goldthwait, and then crank the beastly faux metal til everyone had gone to bed. Erectus' routines would then predictably be played out at recess by every would-be stoner looking to impress the chicks and the fellas.
• Ms. Tossel, my 8th-grade English teacher, assigned everyone in class to conduct a poll of some kind - mine was "What's your favorite kind of music?". The choices I listed were "Hard Rock", "Easy Rock" (think Air Supply, Ambrosia and the Little River Band), "Soul", "Disco" and "New Wave". Of course the latter was a sop to myself, and no, I wasn't calling it punk yet (besides -- I really liked new wave). Final winner, out of roughly 40 kids polled? Hard Rock, of course, though I "interviewed" a disproportionate number of girls and almost got "Easy Rock" to squeak over the top. New Wave came in dead last. I remember having to stand up in front of class to read off the results and discuss my methodology (full regression analysis, discrete variables, etc.), and afterward, this total Cheech Marin-voiced Latino tough guy named Enrique ("Kiki") Salcido asked me what style I had voted for. When I sheepishly intoned that I had in fact voted for "New Wave", he looked stunned and incredulous, and asked me (remember his Cheech Marin voice), "No way Hinman -- you're a ponker???!?".

Naturally I could go on with self-referential tales such as these, but we all have them in some form or another. I actually missed nearly a decade's worth of schooling in "classic rock" because of my visceral hatred of my schoolmates and my reactionary decision to not listen to anything they liked. Therefore I thought (at the time) the Stones sucked, AC/DC sucked, Sabbath sucked, Led Zep sucked etc. The Pretenders? Adam and the Ants? Well, Adam and the Ants kinda ruled, didn't they?

FOUR NEW MUSICAL REASONS TO BELIEVE

In case you hadn’t noticed it, the musical paradigm of our age is now the song, as opposed to the album. I was brought up in a time where, if you were a fan of a particular artist, it was their upcoming album (LP) that you sat on the proverbial pins & needles for. An occasional 45 might slip in and fill the sucking, howling void, but everything was centered around anticipating that 10- or 12-song collection that the band had been working on the past year. Now – not so much. And truth be told, I like the new reality a great deal better.

Musical enjoyment is really all about the song, anyway. Not to get all Jacques Derrida on you, but the album is a “twentieth-century construct” that we all simply got used to. Some bands or artists did a good job using this construct to create albums that felt as if each song were part of a larger whole, yet even my favorite records – “The Velvet Underground and Nico” or “A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die” or “The Ramones” - could easily be said to just be one long winning streak of great song after great song. So now that the people are trawling the internet for single-song downloads, or buying songs at 99 cents a pop on iTunes or Amazon or eMusic, it has reshaped the music consumption experience, and is saving me and you a great deal of money to boot. My favorite method of musical discovery these days is downloading the crap out of stuff that looks interesting, and throwing it all into my iTunes “To Listen To” folder. Once I get to 40 or 50 songs, I actually do the listening, and I then pick out the gold. And the god’s honest truth is that there are some friggin’ bands popping up every week that continue to make rock music extremely exciting for this curmudgeonly codger.

Take the MYELIN SHEATHS for instance. This Canadian pack of raw yet melodic robo-power punk sound like they might individually be creeping up on 19 years of age, and this song “Everything is Contagious” from their forthcoming album just totally explodes in a gooey mess all over your headphones. Love it, and that album’s going to be a must-buy when it hits the digital shelves in a couple weeks (no, I didn’t say the album was completely buried yet). Atlanta’s BARRERACUDAS are similarly fantastic, but are frolicking in a totally different slice of the pie. Their tarted-up Johnny Thunders guitar screamer “New York Honeys” is right out of the UK glam/NY Dolls playbook, except it’s from this past year and it’s kind of hilarious, as a lot of the strutting, preening hard-glam stuff is. I like it when the singer warns us to “Look Out” before the song’s even three seconds in. Now that’s confidence.

READING RAINBOW are from Philly, as I understand it, and this track “Wasting Time” is a wonder of chugging, harmonic convergence. Boys and girls holding hands and singing their lungs out under a sparse, garagy blanket of sound. Finally, the veterans and most well-known of this bunch are THEE OH SEES from San Francisco. Noise for noise’s sake is a huge pet peeve as my ear canals become more sensitive and as my BS detector continues to sharpen, but these guys & gal leaven any tendencies they have toward needless free-form freakouts with an absurd sense of 60s pop melody. This is a sha-la-la song of the highest order, and I command you to take note of it.

That’s it – see you on the other side of the weekend.

Play MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”


Download MYELIN SHEATHS – “Everything is Contagious”

Play THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”


Download THE BARRERACUDAS – “New York Honeys”

Play READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”


Download READING RAINBOW – “Wasting Time”

Play THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”


Download THEE OH SEES – “I Was Denied”

AUTUMNAL BEER REPORT

The Hedonist Jive has been indulgent when it comes to all manner of fine ales this past month, and yet we’ve had a hard time keeping you up to date with many of the elixirs we’ve been chasing and nabbing. “Our bad”. There was that SIERRA NEVADA “Fritz & Ken’s Stout” that was so god-bless-America amazing that we had to interrupt all the other things we wanted to post about to give due kudos to, but in between that and today and in the weeks before all that, well, other beers have been tried and rated. Let’s meet them all, shall we?

THE OUTSTANDING

STONE BREWING “LEVITATION ALE” – I can’t believe it, but I’d never had this 4.4% alcohol marvel before. I loved it. It is a superlative red ale. Malty and delicious, absolutely perfect for a night when you’re settling in and know you’re going to need more than one beer. It’s just one of those ubiquitous yet under-the-radar STONE beers (like their basic IPA) that blow nearly everyone else away. The perfect “session” beer. 9/10.

THE VERY GOOD

WACHUSETT LARRY – My pal Aaron Goldfarb from the Vice Blog – whose very funny book “How To Fail” is about to hit the shelves in a few weeks – not only gave this a superlative review on his blog, he personally bought me this bottle in Massachusetts and hand-delivered it to me last time I was in New York. This was made by WACHUSETT BREWERY in “Mass” for Boston’s PUBLICK HOUSE, whom longtime readers may recall we raved about here one drunken night. This is a “sipper” of an IPA, pouring a copper color and bursting out with a fruit-packed citrus taste, leavened with some fresh, piney hops. Strong aftertaste – the kind you like. Really, really enjoyable. 8/10.

 FLYING DOG BREWING “RAGING BITCH” – This appeared at my local Whole Foods for about 5 minutes, so given the reviews I’d read I went for it with gusto. A very yummy Belgian-style IPA. Hoppy, citrusy and super yeasty. That’s about all the review I can give – they only come in 12-ounce bottles (sad face emoticon). I’d buy this again for sure. 7.5/10.

TELEGRAPH BREWING “WHITE ALE” – I was totally floored by this beer when I had it fresh in the Santa Barbara-based brewery in 2008, but had yet to buy one of their elaborate corked bottles and try it that way. It may not be a world-changer but it’s damn good. A tangy, chamomile-like witbier, one that’s exceptionally carbonated and bottle conditioned. Enormous head. Fruity, zesty and definitely tart. I continue to be a huge fan of this Central California Coast brewer. 7.5/10.

MIDNIGHT SUN “SOCKEYE RED IPA” – These Alaskans all of a sudden have their beer available in Northern California, and most of their stuff is really good. This is a malty, lightly-hopped red IPA. Light and fruity with some caramel and a good bite on the finish. A big step beyond solid. 7.5/10.

HOLLISTER BREWING “ALTERED STATE” – I was in the Santa Barbara area this past weekend for my Aunt’s memorial service, and used the occasion to stop in at this much-loved Goleta, CA brewery. They are located a mere mile from the University where I spent four years of my life from 1985 to 1989, and what a revelation they would have been had they been around back then (I do remember Tim Slater giving me a “Sierra Nevada Pale Ale” in 1989 while we were soaking in a pool, and it totally rocking my world). Anyway, this is a Dusseldorf-style altbier, or “sticke”. Sweet malts, chewy amber, and quite refreshing. A great first choice while I waited for my fish tacos. 7.5/10.

HOLLISTER BREWING “HIPPIE KICKER IPA” – The brewery had two IPAs on draft, and I asked the server which one was better. I was stoked he said this one, because the name alone had me ready to hand over my credit card. It’s a super-hardcore IPA, folks – whoa. Bitter and dry. Piney and sharp. Huge bite to it. You could call this a “double” or a “triple” IPA and no one would blink. It’s hard to believe how mainstream the eye-watering IPA is these days. 7.5/10.

ETNA BREWING “BLACKBERRY BLONDE” – This one’s from a tiny town from way up in rural Northern California. I bought it at a hippie market in Mt. Shasta City, CA, simply because I was on one of those obsessive beer quests for things I’d never had before that I’d never see again. And lo, it was good! A really light pale wheat ale with some sweetness from the blackberries, I’m guessing. It’s see-through and had no head. It’s made to be refreshing and to not give you too big of a buzz to interfere with your chores or what have you. Very enjoyable and recommended. 7/10.

THE MERELY DECENT

SPEAKEASY BREWING “BOURBON BARREL-AGED PAYBACK PORTER” – I’m not a big fan of this local (San Francisco) brewer and I’ve tried to give them “constructive criticism” over the years on my blogs to no avail. This one’s quite decent enough, though. I tried it before a (National League West Champion) Giants game a week ago right there at the olde ballpark, and found it to a be a thin and smoky porter, with only the faintest hint of bourbon barrel aging. If this is what their weirdo, crazy “imperial” version of Payback Porter is like, I’m glad I haven’t spent real cash money on the basic version, though this one’s definitely OK if you encounter it on tap. 6.5/10.

NINKASI BREWING “TOTAL DOMINATION IPA” – Total domination? Puh-leeze. Total begrudging acquiescence maybe. Great fruity smell, and tastes stronger than its 6.7% alcohol, but this creamy, hoppy IPA is one of those “good enough” beers that one can run into at just about any brewery. 6/10.

MT. SHASTA BREWING “MOUNTAIN HIGH IPA” – Only a few months ago this crew was still known as “WEED ALES”, as in Weed, California – home of the Hi-Lo Café and a great spot to stop in on your way to (or home from) the Pacific Northwest. The bottle cap still even had their “Drink Legal Weed” (haw haw!!) slogan on it. So now they’re MT. SHASTA BREWING. They make a sharp and piney IPA with a pleasingly deep malty backbone. A little chalky, though, and at the end of the day it doesn’t come together all that well. I could drink it again, but given the cornucopia of other India Pale Ale delights, I likely won’t. 6/10.

SCHLAFLY BREWING “RESERVE IMPERIAL STOUT 2008” – I’m contemplating this very beer as I type these reviews, and color me severely disappointed in this one. I was at the Whole Food Beer Store in New York City two months ago, and I whipped out this list I was carrying in my iPhone of beers I needed to buy. Based on some respected blogger’s musings, this was one of them – and I’m guessing $14.99 is the minimum I paid for this, But truly, this bourbon-barrel aged, sharp-ass imperial stout is no big deal. It is a 10.5%-abv monster, and in Missouri that might impress the locals, but from where I sit this thing is just missing a lot of the chocolate/caramel oomph it needs to put it over the top. If you want a lesson in how it should be done, like I said last week – take a lesson from FRITZ & KEN. 6/10.

NINKASI BREWING “BELIEVER DOUBLE RED ALE” – After the Hedonist Jive and Hedonist Beer Jive spent the better part of the last two years praising every “imperial red” ale that came across our lips, it’s actually something of a relief to find one we don’t like. I bought this in Oregon over the summer, mostly because I was so blown away by these guys’ TRICERAHOPS double IPA. This one just doesn’t have the warmth and the depth of flavor of some of the newer amped-up ambers out there, and the hops seem super muted. Not horrible, but I still choose to not believe. 5.5/10.

THE LAME

UNION ALES “PINEHOPPLE IPA” – After I was done tasting the aforementioned HOLLISTER BREWING beers, which were great (or shall we say, “very good”), I headed into downtown Santa Barbara to try this new brewery near the train station, one that wasn’t even in town last time we came through (and we go here over other year on vacation – when the weather is ON, this is one of G*d’s Chosen Places). Well, the brewery was total doucheville on this Saturday night at least, with the lowest-common-denominator sub-sports bar clientele imaginable. And in case you were wondering, a pineapple-infused IPA is pretty awful. Super weak, off-taste, and I couldn’t scramble out of this place fast enough. 3/10.

STILLWATER ARTISINAL ALES' “STATESIDE SAISON”

Once a new beer gets rolling on the hype train, it’s either get on board quickly, or run the risk of missing out. This sport, while perhaps not the sport of kings, is among my favorite pastimes: chasing the big ones from market to market, from trade partner to trade partner, from sea to shining sea. O what a life I lead! So it was with the beers of STILLWATER ARTISINAL ALES. This Maryland-based duo made up of a homebrewer and a beer fiend are itinerant brewers in the nascent MIKKELLER tradition - so don’t go looking for their brewpub or even their kettles next time you’re in Baltimore. Beer making continues to evolve and take on new roots and branches, and this tentacle in particular got a huge reaction out of the gate. I ran down to my local beer store and picked up bottles of STATESIDE SAISON and CELLAR DOOR, both farmhouse ales in the “Belgian tradition”.

STATESIDE SAISON is the one I unloaded into my glass first. It’s a 6.8% ABV, brewed with US- and New Zealand-grown hops, with a ridiculous amount of foam. I was taken aback right off the bat with the amazing taste - fruity and juicy, with just a slight whiff of funk. It was refreshing, and it tasted just fantastic cold. Lemon and pepper could be noted in the aftertaste. As it got warm, I daresay I was a little less interested, and made a vow to drink this a little more quickly next time. A great debut from this new brewer, and if I ever run into these guys I’ll clap ‘em on the backs and assure them they deserve the hype they’re getting. 8/10.

IF YOU’RE LOOKING AT ME, YOU’RE LOOKING AT COUNTRY

Most guys I know, if they’ll cop to enjoying country music at all, it’s usually the most rough-hewn “outlaw” country of the late 60s and early 70s, as exemplified by WAYLON JENNINGS and JOHNNY PAYCHECK. It might sometimes stray into slightly more commercial country like WILLIE NELSON or GEORGE JONES, or to acts with a bit of quirk like PORTER WAGGONER. Everyone loves Hank Williams, and most everyone digs Johnny Cash. Women that I know seem to hate country music with a vengeance, except for the lunatic fringe who believe that Kenny Chesney, Rascal Flatts et al represent aynthing more than a tangential, Southern-accent connection to the country music of yore. I think we can ALL agree that country music in its best forms died around 1975 or 1976, with the arrival of Kenny Rogers, Eddie Rabbit and the Oak Ridge Boys, and the godawful crossover of country with dance music and rock. Country since that time certainly has had acts that have made good records, but to my ears those have primarily come from the modern “No Depression” sect of bands or acts who took their cues from the 50s, 60s and early 70s, or who’ve gone in a more folkie direction a la TOWNES VAN ZANDT.

This is all my way of saying that while many of us have universalist standards for what is or isn’t good country music, when we like the form at all, some of us – say, for instance, me – allow ourselves to indulge in different sub-fringes of classic country music and call it “the best”. In my case, I am a total sucker for strings, backing vocals and the slicked-up “countrypolitan” studio sound that many of the top female artists of the 60s employed. For me, LORETTA LYNN’s version of “Hello Darlin’” is probably the greatest country music song of all time, notwithstanding Hank Williams’ entire oevre. A song like WANDA JACKSON’s melancholic “Back Then”, rather than striking me as purely syrupy schmaltz, comes off to me as a syrupy, schmaltzy, beautiful tearjerker that I could listen to 100 times in a row. I’ve read enough books on 1960s country to know that this was the era when the songwriters really took over, and men like Harlan Howard, Shel Silverstein and Tom T. Hall wrote dozens of well-crafted hits during this time and duly have their place in the Country Music Hall of Fame as a result.

I’m also a fan of some of the drunken hellraisers (check out the awesome Johnny Paycheck and Merle Haggard songs I've got for ya), trucker music (Dave Dudley!), some of the more offbeat male singers (JIM ED BROWN is a particular favorite) and some of the less-countrypolitan women like Jerry Lee Lewis’ little sister LINDA GAIL LEWIS. Here’s a collection I put together of 17 of the best country songs, all from the time I think country music was peaking in roughly 1965-1975. It's perfect for dragging into iTunes, as everything is saved in the .m4a format.

Let me know if I missed any knockouts, and hope you enjoy.

Track List

1. As Soon As I Hang Up The Phone – LORETTA LYNN & CONWAY TWITTY
2. Pop a Top – JIM ED BROWN
3. Skid Row – MERLE HAGGARD
4. Back Then – WANDA JACKSON
5. I’ve Lived My Life – DOLLY PARTON
6. Motel Time Again – JOHNNY PAYCHECK
7. T-H-E E-N-D – LINDA GAIL LEWIS
8. Loser’s Cocktail – DICK CURLESS
9. Pack Up Your Sorrows – JOHNNY CASH & JUNE CARTER
10. Singing My Song – TAMMY WYNETTE
11. Blanket on the Ground – BILLIE JO SPEARS
12. Hello Darlin’ – LORETTA LYNN
13. Hello Saturday Morning – LEE HAZLEWOOD
14. Put It Off Until Tomorrow – BILL PHILLIPS
15. Big City – MARGIE BOWES
16. I Got Lost – DAVE DUDLEY
17. I Don’t Want To Throw Rice – DOLLY PARTON

Download “If You’re Looking At Me, You’re Looking At Country” 17-track CD (this is a .zip file)

Another way to get this one is to download each track individually - they're all labeled and easy to import. Thanks to Jeremy Nobody for this labor of love. CLICK HERE to do it this way.