HOW'D COUNTRY GET SUCH A BAD NAME?:

Blood on the saddle (Chris Handyside, 12/18/2002, Detroit Metro Times)

What is this Bloodshot, you ask? It is a Chicago-based country music record label. And last week, it turned 100. Rather, Bloodshot released its 100th record, a celebratory compilation dubbed Making Singles, Drinking Doubles, that (appropriately) compiles many of the musical highlights the label has unleashed in 7-inch vinyl format.

Besides cuts from the Waco Brothers (and other permutations of prolific leader Jon Langford's musical self), the comp includes cuts from guys as well-known as Ryan Adams (an early and ongoing Bloodshot cohort) and singer-songwriter Alejandro Escovedo. There are folks as odd as R&B crooner Andre Williams (who here is paired with Detroit's Two-Star Tabernacle which includes members of White Stripes, Blanche and the Detroit Cobras). And there are the vast majority of the cuts that come from members of the Bloodshot family that are household names mostly in households that subscribe to indie-country bible No Depression magazine. Names like Neko Case, Kelly Hogan, the Volebeats, Rex Hobart & the Misery Boys, Moonshine Willy. Better still, many of 'em pull off the kind of reinventive covers that only seem reasonable on a 45.

"The kind of mentality people go into recording a single with is different," says Bloodshot co-owner Rob Miller, himself a Detroit ex-pat. "I like the spontaneity that a single occasions--bands maybe choose material that wouldn't make it on a record. In our convenience-driven society, I'm not sure how many people like to get up off their couch every two-and-a-half minutes to flip a record."

No sensible person would judge the state of rock by the garbage on Top 40 stations; why does Country get judged by the dreck that gets played on radio? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 27, 2002 11:48 AM