Run Over by the Waco Express!

What began essentially as a flight of fancy back in 1995 – “when it started, the whole purpose of this band was to get beer and money,” Waco Brothers frontman Jon Langford told No Depression magazine in 1997 – has, better than a decade down the road, become an influential forebear to the entire alternative country scene.

In reality, the Waco Brothers were a literal covers band, formed as an outlet for Langford’s love of country and roots-rock music. Better known…originally…as the voice of British punk legends the Mekons, Langford found himself in Chicago with fellow British musicians Alan Doughty and Steve Goulding, alumni of the bands Jesus Jones and Gang Of Four, respectively.

The Waco’s raucous live shows in Chicago-area clubs found fans in Nan Miller, Eric Babcock and Rob Miller, the three music lovers behind the city’s Bloodshot Records, who convinced Langford that the Waco Brothers should record an album for the fledgling “insurgent country” label. "It was not until Nan said, 'Make an album,' which we thought was such a ridiculous prospect to just do a lot of really horrible cover versions, that we thought we'd better try and write some songs," Langford told No Depression.

The resulting effort was the critically-acclaimed To The Last Dead Cowboy, a ground-breaking collection of poop-punting roots-rock that featured a number of Langford’s left-leaning, blue-collar songs and an overall rockin’ hellbilly soundtrack that was a Nashville Music Row exec’s worst nightmare. The 1995 album helped launch a full-fledged alt-country movement that had been bubbling under for a number of years, and the Waco Brothers became unintentional flagbearers of a sound that was based in traditional country aesthetics but was starkly different from the pap being pushed by Nashville over the previous decade.

With seven studio albums under its belt, the Waco Brothers have grown much larger than just a mere Langford musical side-project and now challenges the Mekons as the vehicle of Langford’s legacy. The major complaint of Waco Brothers fans, through the years, has been that the band’s studio recordings, regardless of their uniformly rocking high-quality, still fall short of the Waco’s free-for-all live shows. With the release of Waco Express - Live & Kickin’ At Schuba’s Tavern, fans that have never had a chance to witness the band in its natural habitat – the stage – can now enjoy a liver-quivering live Waco Brothers performance in the comfort of their own homes. So grab yourself a six-pack (or two) of your favorite libation, and maybe a bag o’ chips, and prepare to get knocked down and run over by the “Waco Express.”

Waco Express - Live & Kickin’ At Schuba’s Tavern kicks off with the manic honky-tonk rave-up “Waco Express,” a blistering twangfest with roaring guitars, tinkling piano and punctures of delicious pedal steel. The tune sets the bar high for the night’s entertainment, but the rest of the disc keeps the energy level dangerously high. “Blink Of An Eye” is, perhaps, one of the more British-sounding songs in the Waco milieu, with Stiff Little Fingers-styled martial rhythms – you almost expect the audience to begin shouting “oi oi oi!” except for the weepy steel guitar that underlines Langford’s vocals. “Too Sweet To Die” is a drunken barroom ballad while the Waco classic “Cowboy In Flames” is a rollicking, unrelenting spanker that wouldn’t sound out-of-place wafting out of the front door of any dive bar still left standing on Nashville’s Lower Broadway.

Drawing on a miles-wide and river-deep catalog of songs, Waco Express features material from across the Waco Brothers’ entire, impressive album catalog. Any Waco Brothers fan has their favorite songs, but for this humble scribe, it’s all good, and each performance here is fuel-injected, 100% guaranteed country-rock chaos. “Do What I Say” is a loutish sing-a-long that sounds even better after a beer or two, while “Harm’s Way” offers up slick Link Wray-styled riffing, explosive drumbeats and a chorus nicked from the Rolling Stones’ distant past. Langford’s “Plenty Tuff Union Made” draws a line between the British working class and blue-collar Americans, the two connected with a steamy backbeat and a catchy chorus, underlined by some squealing fretwork and an overall anarchistic spirit.

“This song is about the death of country music,” says Langford, introducing “Death Of Country Music,” adding, “it’s something that we’ve been working towards over the years. I think with this album we will finally achieve it.” The song’s discordant instrumentation and fierce lyrics are about looking towards the past in order to build something new on the bones of the status quo, and it speaks more towards those who keep the flame of country tradition alive than those who have demeaned and denigrated the music for the sake of filthy lucre.

With Waco Express – Live & Kickin’ At Schuba’s Tavern, the Waco Brothers have delivered a live album that the band’s growing legion of fans can be proud of…loud and proud, raucous and boozy, the band unyielding in its search of high-octane performance pyrotechnics. It’s a wonderful showcase for the Waco Brothers’ original roots-rock sound, and a welcome reminder that Tim McGraw and Faith Hill aren’t the alpha and omega of country music. (Bloodshot Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Waco Express from Amazon.com)