New Deal
The Wacos find fresh ways to gleefully and despondently tell it like it is--the warts, the injustice, and the crushed dreams--without batting an eye or spilling a drop.
What often gets lost in the steamy, sozzled aftermath of a Waco Brothers show is that the Wacos have produced a body of work that is consistently innovative and wildly entertaining, loud and literate, personal and political. Few bands can so fearlessly embrace such a broad range of influences, throw them into the Waco-izer, and emerge with fresh ways to gleefully and despondently tell it like it is--the warts, the injustice, and the crushed dreams--without batting an eye or spilling a drop.
With a sound that cannot be categorized (why is it back in the day Neil Young could throw some lap steel at you or the Stones could cop some fiddle action and it all got called rock?), and a public so inured by the tepid slop flooding the airwaves, New Deal may still need a miracle to change the world. Check out that roadhouse groove and punchy horns of "Poison," or the one-two step punk of "Blink of an Eye," just two songs that are scathing lyrically but danceable as hell. Deano sings the obscure December/May romance novelty by the Milo Twins "Johnson To Jones" and the husky train-beat punk of "New Deal Blues." And manifesto rave ups like "AFC Song" beg a closing time singalong (AFC = Alcohol, Freedom and a Country song, by the way.)
More than anyone, though, the Wacos realize that in a world where we have so little power, so small a voice against the forces of homogenization and corportate malfeasance, sometimes the only thing you can control is to make sure you catch the eye of the bartender before last call is over.
Who says you can't whistle on the way to the gallows?
CHOICE CUTS:
Poison
JOhnson To Jones
Blink of an Eye
New Deal Blues
