It's better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit. That's what management consultants claim when they can't find anything better to say. They haven't learned things the hard way, through hard-earned personal experience. A high ambition is good, but you should focus and deploy your resources in a sustainable way. The secret to happiness is low expectations. The lower the better. I had very high expectations on 2021 and it became a disastrous year when it could have been a fabulous one. New fresh albums were announced from Wovenhand, Antic Clay, Sons of Perdition, Slackeye Slim, Mr Plow, T.K. Bollinger, Oldboy (of the Fens) and The Victor Mourning. It didn't stop there. No less than gothic western legend Christian Williams announced a new album. This was very surprising since he changed his musical style to experimental electronica years ago. Evil doom country band Those Poor Bastards didn't announce anything, but they're always a steady supplier. Well, I hit the ground hard. The icy grip of the pandemic is long, cold and firm. Music creativity and music production has come to an absolute zero. Very few albums were released in the gothic country genre this year: T.K. Bollinger made 12 digital EPs. You can read a quick review in the blog section. Oldboy (of the Fens) released "Invisible Man". They maintain their standards and production rate. Those Poor Bastards released "Old Time Suffering". Their new album is fresh, energetic and exuberant with a couple of outstanding songs. This year must be an all time low for new releases. In terms of quality, 2021 was a passable year considering the circumstances.
What about next year? I have adjusted my expectations down to zero. I will not be disappointed. Come what come may. I haven't turned into Ebenezer Scrooge yet. There's a difference between expecting and wishing. I haven't stopped wishing. I've had the same three wishes for six years in a row. Not much of prosperity, only adversity. The first wish: a new gothic country album from Christian Williams. This will come true. However, the artist is sovereign and not a tool for other people's expectations. The album will be ready when it's ready. I can wait. The second wish: a new album from The Victor Mourning. They have emerged with a new direction and a new name, Swarme of Beese. I'm not too worried. I don't think their new name and direction means a complete u-turn (read more here). This wish will come true in 2022. The have a new album coming up. It will be released on vinyl and available for download in high-quality format. The third wish: to acquire at least one of the hard-to-find four missing albums (read more here) and to get all albums from the defunct label Devil's Ruin Records (this is actually two wishes in one). The first part of the wish failed (as always), and the second part failed this year. I wish for the same three things in 2022. What about new album releases in 2022? Wovenhand's ninth album "Silver Sash" was initially scheduled to be released in 2020, then postponed to 2021 and now the release date is February 4, 2022. T.K. Bollinger is working on a physical release of the best songs from his 12 EPs. Hopefully, there will be more. I don't know. What I do know is that it's better to aim low and hit.
I'm a late adopter. I came across the mother of (almost) all gothic country bands, 16 Horsepower, in 2008. This chance meeting had consequences. I began to write about the genre in Swedish. My first staggering steps can be traced back to a site named CD-Runda (opens in a new window). After a while, I decided to launch a website dedicated to gothic country music and to write in English. I killed two birds with one stone. A website in English expands the target audience. This also gave me an opportunity to improve my English. Swedish kids have studied English for ten years before attending higher education (where all textbooks often are in English). However, I graduated long ago and there was and is room for improvement both in terms of grammar and vocabulary. I also took Spanish in school. I jumped in when the semester already had begun, stayed for six weeks and then jumped back. Never got beyond "una maleta blanca y negra". I had more options than English and Spanish. I took German for six years. There was an even greater need to improve my German. This could be a good refreshing and re-learning project. However, I never mastered the dative and accusative objects. I guessed my way through school. English was not really much of a choice. It is, after all, the most spoken language in the world.
In the 1970s many Swedes learned English through a TV-program called "Start". The program leader was Michael Knight, a british-born university lecturer and translator with enormous ears. The popular adult education program was produced by UR (Swedish Educational Broadcasting Company) which is part of the public service broadcasting group in Sweden, with Swedish Radio (SR) and Swedish Television (SVT). It was very basic: "Say after me, please. Yes, please [dramatic pause]...Yes, please. Good! Yes, I like it [dramatic pause]...Yes, I like it. Good!". We listened to reel-to-reel tapes in school and filled in handouts that smelled alcohol. It's funny how your memory works. After 50 years, I still remember my first English lessons (two per week) in the third grade. We were all curious and expectant. Then the teacher dropped the bomb: "It's raining cats and dogs". Apparently, this sentence was taken straight out of the textbook. We understood what the teacher said, but not what it meant. A tedious teacher-led explanatory session followed. The English-language idiom "raining cats and dogs" is used to describe particularly heavy rain. It is of unknown etymology. I leave the appropriateness of using English idioms on Swedish third-graders to the scientific community. However, during the shortest period of employment in my life, in school bureaucracy on the national level, I met people who were specialists in didactics and pedagogics. They were consumed by postmodern theories and knowledge relativism. They had their own perception of the world. For them, literally, raining cats and dogs is not strange.
The ongoing pandemic has thrown a wet blanket over musical creativity and output all over the world. When the Plague raged from 1346 to 1353, music was played very little or not at all. The only exceptions were people who decided that since they were going to die anyway, they might as well spend the rest of their life in happiness. In the light of this, maybe the natural thing to do is to commit yourself to release an EP with four songs every month during a whole year, in total 48 songs. Anyway, that's exactly what Australian musician T.K. Bollinger decided to do. A bold decision, perfectly executed. The artists explains: "These EPs are loosely joined by a theme reflected in their titles, that being the ordinary. I wanted to express stories that related to everyone's experience, some dark, some light and many more inbetween." I wrote an appreciative blog post called "The greater the effort, the greater the glory", read more here (opens in a new window). In the blog post I assessed the first six EPs.
The remaining six EPs will now be assessed. I will walk them through EP by EP. The, to say the least, ambitious release project is digital only with a physical release of the best songs as an album in early 2022. I will leave unsolicited advice regarding which songs to include on the physical release. The seventh EP is "Ordinary Loses". The opening song "In Control" is charming with a lot of digital horns, "I have bet my life on control / Yet it still ran rife on control / Sought no body’s respect, left no bodies intact / I thought that I was in control". The second song "Suddenly" will also be a strong contender for the physical release. In this song T.K Bollinger uses his vocal abilities to fullest. Great lyrics, beautiful sung and horns in abundance. But it isn't any horn arrangement in a Bavarian "Oompah" style. The eight EP is "Ordinary Failings". The best song is "God of Small Excuses", but it will probably not stand the competition and make it to the physical release. The ninth EP is "Ordinary Despair". These four songs with horns and strings are ordinary in the usual sense of this word. The tenth EP is "Ordinary Graces". The third song "Walk Like a King" will maybe make it to the physical release. The fourth and last song "Gun Shy" should definitely go straight to the physical release. Great chorus and a one minute long stunning and epic ending. The eleventh EP is "Ordinary Endings". The best song is "The Reason for it All", which may or may not make it to the physical release. The last and twelfth EP is "Ordinary Beginnings". This is, in my opinion, the best of the EPs in the second batch. The first song is "The Joke and the Punchline". "I am the joke and the punchline / The regret and hope that lingers after the dream / I am the voice that says there’s plenty of time / Up until the closing scene / Still unclear of where I’ve been". This is Bollinger songwriting at its best. The third song "From Morning Surban Sunshine" is also a gem and a highlight. The song unfolds slowly and majestic. Everything is great about this song. The fourth song "First Principles" is an excellent album closing song. Vocals and instruments in a perfect combination. "If the choice is one between an aching heart / And insanity, would you walk away, walk away?" The song is like a steamroller. It flattens you. And the overall impression? I could copy and paste my assessment from the blog post "The greater the effort, the greater the glory". It's a winding road. There are highs and there are lows. This is expected and consistent with the idea of releasing an EP a month. T.K. Bollinger philosophy is to shuffle up and deal. This means that some songs are misses, but that’s the nature of his creativity. Anyway, there are more hits than misses. T.K. Bollinger has plenty of songs to choose from for the physical release. You can check out all the 12 EPs for yourself here (opens in a new window). The mission is accomplished. Well done!
Those Poor Bastards are one of the stalwarts of the gothic country genre. The "Prophets of the Country Doom". They are known for controlling all parameters and for their steady production rate. But this time vinylmania has created an obstacle. Before the summer TPB announced on Facebook: "Due to extreme delays in vinyl record pressing, it looks like the new Those Poor Bastards album "Old Time Suffering," will be released this Fall instead of this Summer.", read more here (opens in a new window). Well, I guess releasing a cd first and the vinyl album later was never an option. Vinylmania is a serious disease. The signed test pressings are already sold out, $100(!) a copy. We, the cd collectors, are not a prioritized group. In fact, we are a marginalized and mocked group. Sooner or later, the day will come when there are no CD releases at all. My plan is to switch over to uncompressed digital format. We are not there yet. Anyway, I have pre-ordered a cd copy and it's on its way from Stoughton, Wisconsin. What can we expect from TPB? Those Poor Bastards are quality-conscious. Nevertheless, I was pretty disappointed of their latest release "Evil Seeds", read more here (opens in a new window). Was this dip an one-off event? I think and hope so. Those Poor Bastards have presented one song from the upcoming album, "Tobacco's But An Indian Weed". Wow, if this catchy song is representative for the whole album, then TPB have created a splendid new album. "Old Time Suffering" will be released on December 10th, 2021.
Some things are irreversible like death and time. Death is inevitable, time is ineluctable. Speaking of which: how is the gothic country genre holding up these days? Not very good I'm afraid. The statistics is brutal. There are 59 bands and artists in my prestigious article series of which 30 are officially disbanded. 10 bands and artists are, most likely, disbanded (no sign of life). This means that 19 bands and artists are still active (some just barely). Nothing lasts forever. Even the longest, the most glittering reign must come to an end someday. Existing bands and artists fade away and the regrowth is close to zero. However, there are a couple of reknown bands and artists that are holding out, for example DBUK, Slim Cessna's Auto Club and The Builder's and the Butchers (West), Sons of Perdition and Pinebox Serenade (South), Those Poor Bastards and Murder by Death (Midwest) and The Devil Makes Three (Northeast), Uncle Sinner (Canada), Oldboy of the Fens (Europe) and, last but not least, T.K. Bollinger (Rest of the World). The enemy is closing in and no help is coming. We will have to fend for ourselves. The only thing I can do is to document for posterity. Adding new information and uppdating existing information. I have a backlog of work. The website contains certain obsolete information and dead links. I will make a complete overhaul when I find the time. I have hereby defined my role: supporting the pockets of resistance that are holding out. With the words of british statesman Winston Churchill: "to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do...we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end."