Drag The River

What do you get when you throw together some of punk's all-stars like Jon Snodgrass, Chad Price, JJ Nobody from The Nobodys? A fucking serious alt-country band. Now, I'm not a fan of the label "alt-country," because they're just an amazing band with incredibly varied roots and an interesting sound. But that's the category iTunes files it under. What can you do. I've been listening to You Can't Live This Way since I finally got the whole album a couple weeks ago.
I got introduced to this band - specifically, to this record - late last year by a new friend who's got pretty great musical taste (and by that I mean that it mirrors mine pretty nicely). He sent me over a couple tracks, and every time I went into a record story for the past 6 months or so I've looked around to see if I can find anything by them. No dice. I've got a decent collection of All and Armchair Martian (side note:whenever I type Armchair Martian I still get the Ataris' Song For A Mix Tape in my head - "there was jawbreaker and armchair martian, built to spill and the descendents") and I've always thought both bands had strong lyrical content and super catchy tunes. This record totally blew me away though. It opens with Death of the Life of the Party, and consists straight-up danceable/hang out-able/rock out-able/play over and over-able songs from start to finish. These are classic drinking songs, folks. Lyrically the album is stellar. Lines in every song stick out for me, like the first time I heard Left & Leaving (okay, so no one's as crazy as JKS, but these guys know their shit). Lizzy is my personal favorite (can't find any live videos or anything of that one, that's a last.fm link). I think I fell in love with it from the unapologetic chorus: "I'm the kind of man your mama hates, I wouldn't blame you if you did too/if you think I wrote this song for you, you'd be wrong." Makes me dance in my seat on the metro a little too.
Anyway, 200% worth checking out. Seriously. When I was looking at tickets for that Old 97s show at Maxwell's in Jersey I saw that they're playing May 17th or 18th with Joey Cape for 10 bucks. If I've got a full-time, decent paying job by then I'll probably splurge and hit up NYC for the weekend. I can't really afford it, and I'll be taking the bus for 16 hours total to see 2 bands, but really.. I'm taking a train trip for about 35 hours for a show and a weekend with some amazing friends, so that's nothing.