Trailer Park Rangers, Lullabies of All This Mess (Self-Produced,1996)
Trailer Park Rangers, Everyone's a Winner (Self-Produced, 2002)
Trailer Park Rangers, Lullabies of All This Mess (Self-Produced,1996)
Trailer Park Rangers, Everyone's a Winner (Self-Produced, 2002)
While the mainstream US music scene limps blandly through its sheltered adolescence, the Trailer Park Rangers are running full throttle out at the frontier. They kick up more home-grown American musical wit in one song than most alt-country bands do in an entire CD.
The Trailer Part Rangers are David T. Carter doing vocals, guitars, and jaw harp, Joe Kyle Jr. banging out bass and vocals, Dave Zirbel putting out mighty pedal steel guitar, Chip Trombley on target with drums, vocals, and waterbottle, and Oliver Meissner with fleet fingers on the violin. David T. Carter is an Aussie who has brought a fresh perspective to the scene. His impressive guitar resume includes influences like Chet Atkins and Commander Cody. Although his vocals tend to verge on George Jones, his singing style is too varied, refined, and well-executed to pigeonhole. And his band really comes through with a decade of expertise working with him.
The Rangers debut effort is Lullabies of All This Mess. "Someday" starts out this plucky little bastard of a CD with a variety of barnyard sounds and a lazy Sunday morning hangover version of "There's No Place Like Home" that morphs into one of the more conventional country songs on the album. The second song, "Goodnight Ilene," also comes across as a conventional country song and features some fine guitar solos.
By the fourth song, "Suitably Safe," all bets are off with a superb whistle solo, and the listener is well outside the country mainstream. The vocals in "Lust in Space" are a delightfully deranged parody of Jimmy Buffet. The remaining numbers are a totally unique blend of reggae, bebop, acoustic jazz, swing, and ragtime that will have all the stray cats in your neighborhood lined up on the fence for a listen. The next-to-last song, "Holdin' on to You and Me," features some actual crooning and a dazzling solo by Charlie Blacklock on the magical musical saw. "Meet You by the River" closes out the CD with a reprise of the saw and more poultry sounds.
The second CD, Everyone's a Winner, is a glorious surprise because it's even more innovative and crosses wider musical boundaries than Lullabies . The opener, "Everyone's a Winner in this Town," gives up some fine drum, guitar, and pedal steel combinations. The lyrics lay down an appropriately sarcastic comment on how the limitations of small town life are mostly self-imposed.
The play list then dips into various influences, like reggae ("The World's Lonliest Circus"), Tex-Mex / yodeling ("Aurellio Goncalves"), and space weirdness ("Night Rider"). "Shanghai Cowboy" is an exquisite meld of country and the Far East, a combination that has been rarely tried with success since "Girl Maid in Japan" from Buck Owens. "Ghost Train" is an arrangement that easily rivals anything ever put out by John Hartford.
"The Ballad of Harry Black" asks some truly dark questions about the complicity between the Union and Big Business. It's an irreverent piece, the product of our age in an America that needs all the iconoclasts it can get. Winner wraps up with "Rosalee," a slow and snaky tune that lets the loose ends of your mind come together on the dance floor to commemorate unrequited love.
The Trailer Park Rangers stand shoulder to shoulder with other innovators of Roots Americana like R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders and the Squirrel Nut Zippers. Their CDs are living proof that country music is anything but a museum piece in this day and age.
The Trailer Park Rangers hook up here.
