YOU OUGHT TO JUST BUY A GOOD GUITAR” or

Two important albums of alternative country
will be reissued on Nov 19 by Bloodshot Records

The Bottle Rockets’ debut from 1993,
and their next album, The Brooklyn Side from 1994.

The Bottle Rockets are pioneers of alt-country. The roots of this subgenre go back to the 80s. There were two bands in the Midwest, The Primitives played rockabilly, then punk, finally blues oriented fast garage rock; the Chicken Truck played outlaw country music. The two bands occasionally played together. The first band changed his name into Uncle Tupelo, and released his debut album in 1990. The ’No Depression’ would be the first „alternative country” labelled record. In same year the Chicken Truck split up, and the singer and guitarist, Brian Henneman became a roadie and guitar technician of Uncle Tupelo, but he also played on shows and records as a permanent guest. Furthermore a country cover band, the Coffee Creek was founded by U.T. and Brian, who after a successful solo single (backed by U.T. men and ex-Chicken Truck drummer) founded his own band with ex-C. T. members in 1992. The Bottle Rockets’ first album was released in the following year. And the end of beginning of alt-country in 1994 the Uncle Tupelo split into two part: Wilco and Son Volt.

But the pioneers of alt-country dispute that they discovered any singular thing: „we were just picking up the ball, starting with Woody Guthrie and on to the early ’60s and the Flying Burrito Brothers that we were influenced by. We didn’t start a genre. We contributed to a long line of fairly good music.” – said Mike Heidorn, the ex-drummer of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt. Never mind, the alt-country is flourishing.

In one hand, the phrase shows the opposition to the Nashville dominated corporate country, in other hand marks the difference from traditional country style. There are various elements of rock and roll, rockabilly, punk, rock and blues mixing with country, like in the music of Bottle Rockets:

Stories about the blue-collar side of America on remastered two-CD reissue set with 19 previously unreleased tracks: Chicken Truck and acoustic demo versions, songs with Uncle Tupelo members from the pre-Bottle Rockets era, live and radio performances. The package consists of an 40-page booklet.

RATHER „THAN ANY OLD 1000 DOLLARS CAR”