Jerome Clark, the Country/Bluegrass Editor of Rambles.Net, and probably our favorite critic out there, has kindly reviewed "Appalachian Trail" in his latest edition.

Check it out:

Blind Corn Liquor Pickers,
Appalachian Trail
(independent, 2008)

Let's start with an obvious truth, obvious truths being in rare supply when the subject is so elusive an entity as the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers. Which is to say that any band able to conceive, and then write plausibly, a song titled "Intelligent Design" merits our awed regard. Yes, I suppose in its prime the Incredible String Band could have done the same, and it would be mystical and beautiful, too, and probably a sound-alike to the ISB's 16-minute epic "Creation" (Changing Horses, 1969). But the BCLP are funny about it, and -- at a crisp 3:38 -- a whole lot more succinct. "ID" is about ... well, it's not about creationism by another name; yet then again, it sort of is. It turns out to be a bluegrass song about a blue-collar loser who expresses his plight in words that hilariously echo the jargon of an evolutionary biologist:

It's just the tools I was given...
I've got a bipedal gait...
I've got opposable digits...
I've got a skill for using tools...
I've got a faculty for reason.

Yet, asks the bewildered, beleaguered narrator, "If the design is so intelligent / Can you explain the shape I'm in?" If you put it that way, who hasn't wondered that?

Travis Young, banjo, vocalist and co-composer for the band, tells me that serious consideration was given to titling this album (their third) after the song. Too bad that it got another, not quite so interesting. But of course we rarely buy records for their titles alone, and potential consumers will want to know that Appalachian Trail continues the delirious twisted-bluegrass sound of its predecessor, Anywhere Else?, which I reviewed in this space on 28 January 2006. Four members are now five, with the addition of singer Beth Walker (whom one would have no trouble imagining at the front of an r&b band). Samuel Kruer has replaced Todd Anderson on bass. Tom Fassas continues on guitar and vocals, as does Joel Serdenis on mandolin, fiddle and vocals. Four guest musicians on various instruments -- fiddle, bodhran, trumpet and melodica -- pop in here and there.

Probably, this sort of thing began with the Holy Modal Rounders in the 1960s. By "this sort of thing" I mean hipsters posing, if not terribly hard, as hillbillies. The BCLP's very name amounts to an over-the-top parody of bluegrass-band names, usually meant to evoke a mythic Southern backwoods and all that implies, in this instance not excluding physical disabilities occasioned by the consumption of cheap, unregulated 'shine. The BCLP, based in Lexington, Kentucky, have the distinction of being superior musicians whose affection for the bluegrass genre, along with broadly related Celtic, mountain, jug-band and honkytonk traditions, is never in doubt. In fact, when they play it straight, the effect is lovely and even manages to draw un-ironic tears. There is, for example, the pretty, affecting "Yellow Roses," a band original like everything else here, and not to be confused with other songs of the same name. "Charlie the Bastard," a decidedly unfunny ballad based, one suspects, on actual events, chronicles a violent man's bloody end in the Southern mountains, ca. 1933.

At other times, as in the title tune and in the aforementioned "Intelligent Design," the band is playing something like the recognizably rolling twang of bluegrass, except backwards. Plenty of songs in the genre call the listener to imagine riding trains and buses or to think back to the old homestead, but nobody travels the lost highways or dreams of the log cabin on the hill the way the BCLR do, or with rhythms akin to theirs. By the time you pass down Appalachian Trail, even the most familiar spots along the road will start to feel like places you've never seen before. It can get confusing, all right, but don't worry. It's the best kind of confusing -- all surprise and delight, with the kind of shock that engenders unexpected laughter. I love these guys.

Linda Blackford of the Lexington Herald-Leader was kind enough to write an article about the BCLP, the song "Park Bench", and the story of Donald Bowling's death at our Woodland Jubilee performance last summer.  It ran on the front page on Sunday's paper

Check it out:

A song for the man who died on the park bench

By Linda B. Blackford

lblackford@herald-leader.com

The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers were in the middle of their set at the Woodland Jubilee Festival on July 7, 2007, when banjo player Travis Young saw the flashing lights of an ambulance. He registered it in that offhand way people do when they're engaged in something else, particularly something as complicated as playing bluegrass banjo in front of a large crowd of fans and aficionados on a warm summer night.

Some time later, someone might have mentioned that a man had died during their set, but it was handled quietly and discreetly.

Young, of Lexington, didn't think about it again. He had bigger things to consume him: his job as a Japanese translator for a Toyota subsidiary, his band, the upcoming birth of his second child.

On Sept. 23, that birth was upon him. He and his wife, Kotone, had spent the night at St. Joseph's East, waiting for her labor to get stronger. At 6:30 a.m., she was still asleep. Young went down to the cafeteria and picked up the Sunday paper, the first one he'd seen in months.

And there he read the story of Donald Bowling, a Harlan native and longtime alcoholic who lay down on a park bench to the lilting sound of bluegrass music and never got up again.

"The story was made to be a bluegrass song," Young said. "I was singing the chorus in the elevator of the hospital."

He finished the lyrics before Maggie Ann Young, six pounds, zero ounces, went home from the hospital. A few weeks later, the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers recorded Park Bench for their third album, Appalachian Trail, and dedicated the album to Bowling.

Before the album was released, Young sent an e-mail message to Bowling's sister, Melissa Abner, who still lives in Harlan County, about the song Park Bench.

"I think it may be the strongest song on it," Young wrote, "but it's slow and serious, so it goes last. I guess it's kind of fitting really. I would like to send you a copy (or several copies) once it is ready, and dedicate the album to Donald, if you're OK with that.

"I apologize if I'm out of line. I know this all brings up very tough emotions for you, and if you'd rather not hear it, I'd respect that decision as well."

Abner's reply was simple:

"As soon as I saw the subject line on your message, I broke down into tears," she wrote.

Abner was closest in age to Bowling and was the one who had to identify him after the Fayette County coroner couldn't figure out who the drifter was. She described a gentle man who'd almost never had a chance to escape the demons of the alcoholic father who beat him and a mother who hid herself in drink as well, dying of cirrhosis of the liver at age 48.

Bowling worked in the mines, fathered five children, went on the wagon and fell back off it.

Abner said he seemed to be getting things together after he found his way to Lexington in search of work. But a trail of arrests for public drunkenness and short stays at the Hope Center in the weeks before his death showed just how tightly the demons clung.

Young knows about the tolls of alcoholism on so many families, including his own. Another song on the album, Yellow Roses, is about his grandparents, and his grandmother's struggles with her husband's drinking.

The irony of the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers — which includes Young, Tom Fassas, Samuel Kruer, Joel Serdenis and Beth Walker — writing such dark and melancholy songs about liquor hasn't escaped Young.

"I think the band name was more fitting when we were a party band," he said. But now they're getting more mature as a band, and as people. The serious songs just come more easily.

"I've been surprised by the number of people who say it's their favorite song on the album," Young said.

On July 7, 2008, the first anniversary of Bowling's death, Young tried to e-mail a file of Park Bench to the Harlan radio station. It didn't work, so Abner drove the album down to town. They played the slow, serious and haunting melody for her Donnie out over the airwaves, maybe even as far as the Evarts graveyard where he lies.

Reviews are starting to trickle in for "Appalachian Trail"...

In an email from Dave Higgs of Nashville NPR's Bluegrass Breakdown:

"Many, many thanks for sending me a copy of the band's latest—your wildest, woolliest and most exciting venture to date, I might add.  As I've said before, I really enjoy a band that's willing to take some chances; and you all do so in spades and, in the process, have concocted your own unique and immediately recognizable sound.  Ain't nobody going to confuse you with anyone else!  The songs are tough, taut and fraught with some simply amazing words, subject matters and imagery.  And the band plays with some real fire and gusto.  Now this is the way edgy bluegrass should sound!  I especially enjoyed "Moonshine Bill," "Charlie the Bastard" (I can't tell you what a wonderful release it is to say "bastard" on the air—thanks!), "Appalachian Trail," "Slash and Burn" and "Party Down Below."  Beth's soaring, bluesy vocals add another whole dimension to your already multi-faceted sound.  You guys are going places!"


And from Keith Lawrence, of the Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer:

Albums Explore the Outer Limits of Genre: Bluegrass Notes

Posted on: Friday, 18 July 2008, 09:00 CDT

By Keith Lawrence, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Jul. 18--Blind Corn Liquor Pickers. "Appalachian Trail." Blind Corn Music. 13 tracks.

If Bill Monroe, the daddy of bluegrass, had had an affair with a wild mountain woman, the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers would be the illegitimate offspring.

That's a compliment, by the way.

As its press kit says, the Lexington-based band fuses bluegrass with folk, swing, progressive rock, funk, jazz and styles that haven't even been named yet.

Beth Walker, the new lead singer, has to be heard to be believed. Think Janis Joplin reincarnated as a bluesy mountain singer.

Band members wrote or co-wrote all 13 tracks with lyrics that feel they like were lifted from a new-age Southern graphic novel.

Coal companies "chop off the heads" of mountains. A ex-miner dies alone drunk on a park bench while a bluegrass band plays. A drug war sees new-age revenuers blown to smithereens in a silo. And a corrupt sheriff is gunned down in a thunderstorm.

In "Party Down Below", Walker wails that if there are no gamblers, drunks and loose women in heaven, she'll just check out the party down below. In "Dirty Dog," she travels by bus across an America that's more than slightly out of kilter.

If you're looking for something different this summer, this is it.

Can't find it in stores? Try www.BlindCorn.com.

After nearly three years of songwriting, arranging, rearranging, recording, mixing & editing, the new CD is finally on sale, online, and in stores, for download, upload or pirated freeload .... shitloads. of. CDs. More than will ever likely be sold in this digital world.

This album's quite a bit different from what you've heard from us in the past. Electric bass, bodhran, melodica, and trumpet mingle with the old favorites - guitar, mandolin, banjo and fiddle. Serious, heart-felt stories of alcohol abuse, heartbreak, and homelessness mix with furious rants against mountaintop removal and the war on drugs and the wild-eyed city boy imaginings of badass lawmen, moonshiners, and thugs. Bluesy female vocals that rock; bass lines that groove; funk songs; irish songs; heel-kickin' bluegrass romps; swingin' jazz numbers; pop hooks; murder ballads; tall tales, death, drugs, blasphemy, booze ....... there's even a waltz on it, for chrissakes...

Ah, hell, I don't know how to describe it, but we worked our asses off making it, and we'd love for you all to hear it.

We're just a few weeks away from kicking off the touring season for real. After a couple of local tune-up gigs, we'll be hitting the festival circuit running ... and we've lucked our way into some really killer fests this year.

The plan is to pack three or four gallons of Pike County moonshine, a van full of noisemakers, and as many friends as possible into a slow-rolling festival caravan. We'll only be on stage for an hour and half or so, but we'll be rockin' the campgrounds all weekend. Come on along.

Here are the highlights:

Mayhem on the Mountain - May 18 & 19 - just outside of Morgantown, West Virginia. This first-time festival looks f*ing brilliant. It's a true hootenanny, complete with the finest in young progressive bluegrass and old-time bands, instrument workshops, childrens activities. etc. You can take lessons in chainsaw carving! If that ain't hillbilly, I don't know what is... This may not be the Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Grade A line-up, but - trust me - you'll be hard pressed to find a more fun bunch of pickers.

We go on at 8:00PM on Saturday Night and are followed by the Hackensaw Boys and Larry Keel. Other highlights include Special Ed and the Shortbus, Greensky Bluegrass, Greasy Beans, the Hillbilly Gypsies, etc.

Appalachian Uprising - May 31 ~ June 2 - Scottown, OH (just north of Ashland, KY and an easy trip from Cincinnati, Columbus, or Charleston, WV). We're proud as hell to be a part of this top-notch line-up. The names speak for themselves: Sam Bush, John Cowan, Darrell Scott, Avett Brothers, Great American Taxi, Larry Cordle, Larry Keel. This festival sold over 5000 tickets last year. We're kicking things off on Friday, so come out early.

Master Musicians Festival - July 20 & 21 - Somerset, KY. Kentucky's top festival for many years running, these folks down in Somerset really know how to stoke a picker's ego! Yep, we're master musicians ... it's official. ;-)

Seriously, check out some of the folks sharing the stage: Old Crow Medicine Show, The Gourds, Chris Knight, Big Leg Emma, Murder by Death, David "Honeyboy" Edwards, etc. We go on Friday evening ... around 5 or 6PM, I think...

Henderson Bluegrass in the Park - Henderson, KY - August 10 ~ 11. For those of y'all that like your bluegrass a little more old-school.

Black Swamp Arts Festival - Sept 7 ~ 9 - Bowling Green, OH. Some of our favorite all-time performances have been totally unexpected. We rocked up to Bowling Green last year on a whim and lucked into playing for one of the smartest, most enthusiastic listening crowds we've ever met. What a great scene. Their annual arts festival features their favorites from this concert series. This year has Alejandro Escovedo, Robbie Fulks, The Deadstring Brothers, Leon Redbone, Devil in a Woodpile, The Infamous Stringdusters, & Bernard Allison, amongst others. Bluegrass, blues, folk, alt-country, you name it, it's one helluva of a cool eclectic mix. We're up twice on Saturday.

Bristol Rhythm & Roots - Sept 14 ~ 16 - Bristol, VA. I know you're all coming to this one. If you are into the newgrass / new-time revolution at all, make sure to book your tickets now. Here are some of the highlights: Tony Trischka, Donna the Buffalo, Avett Brothers, Acoustic Syndicate, Biscuit Burners, Uncle Earl, The Everybodyfields, Packway Handle, Infamous Stringdusters, Langhorne Slim, Steep Canyon Rangers, Rhonda Vincent. Fuckin' A. The schedule is still in the works, but we'll be playing twice over Saturday & Sunday.

Are you in?

In Jug We Trust

Next Tuesday!  March 13.  The Dame.  Lexington, KY.

We are fired up for this show, folks.  For the past four months we've been circling the wagons, working our asses off writing new material and reconfiguring the line-up.  The BCLP sound has been massively redefined and it is going to surprise you.

Don't get me wrong, we're still writing the world's most demented bluegrass tunes, playing them entirely too fast, and toting a large ceramic demijohn full of illegal corn likker ... it's just that we have new weapons, and I think you're gonna like 'em:

Introducing on bass ....... Sam Kruer.  Groove merchant.  Ridin' dirty.  Jazz trained at Eastern Kentucky University, he has incredible technical knowledge of the instrument.  His tasteful playing - knowing when to go crazy and when to lay back and groove - has given our stuff the solid foundation it needs ... wherever we wanna go.

Introducing on lead vocal:  Beth Walker.  Bluegrass Diva.  Mountain mama.  Beth brings it, y'all.  I'm serious.  Just wait to you hear these pipes.  Think Janis Joplin meets Susan Tedeschi, singing Kentucky bluegrass.  Um.

If you can't make the Dame show, we'll be playing in Lexington again on April 7 at Natasha's Cafe, in what promises to be an excellent "listening" environment.  And, you can't beat their Midnight Chicken!

We're also in the line-ups of a number of big-time festivals this summer, including Appalachian Uprising (w/ Sam Bush, Avett Brothers, Great American Taxi, etc.), Bristol Rhythm & Roots (Infamous Stringdusters, Donna the Buffalo), Mayhem in the Mountains (Larry Keel, Hackensaw Boys), Master Musicians Festival (Old Crow Medicine Show, Gourds, Chris Knight), and more.  Check out our tour schedule for details and meet us in the campground for jammin' and 'shine.

2007's gonna be a good year, so hitch up your wagons and join us for the ride!

In Jug We Trust

-BCLP

 

The Blind Corn Liquor Pickers play what can only be called rowdy, party-time bluegrass-rock. Banjos, mandolins and high, lonesome harmonies collide with rock beats and stories about bailing hay and horses beat to hell and back.

In Bad Tom Smith the Nashville-based group sings of bringing a killer to justice and inviting all the surrounding counties to watch the execution. Hi-Ball on a Roll-By combines fast and furious guitar picking with three-part harmonies and lyrics about a train with a smokestack shootin coal dust to the sky. Our personal favorite is the tune Europe on $15 a Day, detailing the story of a boy from West Kentucky traveling in his truck to nearby towns with European names. Glasgow, Athens and London are all on his itinerary, with wild and wacky adventures along the way. We havent checked his geography, but either way it makes for a heck of a ride.

Though the Blind Corn Liquor Pickers four Kentucky natives who play mandolin, guitar, banjo, and upright bass fleetingly give the appearance of a traditional bluegrass band, the illusion is shattered as soon as they launch into the Talking Heads Once In A Lifetime. If the name didnt do the trick.

The rough-hewn quartets loose, unorthodox playing style, verbose, offbeat narratives and occasional rockabilly-esque detours attest to the fact that the band members were not attuned to bluegrass not even its progressive strain during their formative years. The issue of pedigree is candidly addressed in the blithe, good-natured jab Field Cred (on last years debut). A staple of the Liquor Pickers live performances and recordings, Field Cred admits to decidedly suburban affinities.

We werent four guys that grew up attending bluegrass festivals, explains banjo player Travis Young. I dont think any of us came out of that background, and thats probably why we cant pull it off to the degree that the old-timers approve.

Though the band is a half decade into its existence, it took a couple of years before Young, Tom Fassas (guitar, vocals), mandolin player Joel Serdenis and Legendary Shack Shakers co-founder Todd Anderson (bass, vocals), cemented their current lineup, and yet another before they began writing their own material. Their self-recorded, self-titled debut caught them midway through the process of weaning themselves off an all-covers repertoire (including, inevitably, Roger Millers Chug-A-Lug), while their new, Bil Vorndick-produced Anywhere Else?, is comprised entirely of originals. Except for that Talking Heads number.

The Liquor Pickers have mined their home states colorful history for lyrical inspiration, yielding such songs as Little Enis, the ribald tale of a strategically named real-life Elvis impersonator (If Elvis was the Pelvis) and River Of Blazing Bourbon, which imagines quirky, small-town characters coping with a sweeping bourbon flood.

There was a warehouse distillery fire, Young offers. When lightning struck, the whiskey was set on fire and it did roll down the hill. I drove past, and it looked like a big snaking river of bourbon. Of course, it never made it to town or anything, but the world actually lost two percent of its bourbon that day.

Despite the quartets penchant for jocularity, as also evidenced by the dispensing of moonshine at shows deemed jug-worthy, being pegged as a novelty act is not a goal. One thing we dont want to be is a band that makes all of its statements through comedy, Young says. I think we have a lot of things we want to say about life in Kentucky, bluegrass music and life in America in general. Its taken a little but more of a serious turnsome of the newer songs are a bit darker.

At present, the band is still a weekend-only venture, with all four members wedged between the allure of touring beyond the immediate southeast and the reality of mortgages and mouths to feed. That part of it is not very rock and roll, Young says. Even so, the venues are improving.

We played some ridiculously grim gigs, Young recalls. I remember one at a VFW in Irvin, Kentucky, where some guy was screaming at us, because he wanted to hear something on the jukebox, and we were interfering.

Spirited and irreverent, the Liquor Pickers make more than a passing attempt to live up to their moniker, which itself is another vignette culled from Kentucky lore.

The way youd test good shine was to take your batch behind the barn and pass it around amongst yourselves in our case, the four of us, Young says. Over the course of trying out the shine, one of the four members would get up and leave. If the other three couldnt figure out who it was that got up and left, then youd know you had the good stuff.

JEWLY HIGHT