Bloodshot 10-year Anniversary Album

[LaurieBlue]

BLOODSHOT'S 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY ALBUM!

http://www.myspace.com/bloodshotrecords

Eleven 11 years in the making, we're releasing our 10-year anniversary album, "For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records," on October 25. This 43-track, 2-disc celebration compilation includes a heaping serving tracks by your favorite Bloodshot artists and Bloodshot alumni -- Scott H. Biram (www.myspace.com/scotthbiram), Bobby Bare Jr. (www.myspace.com/bobbybarejr), The Waco Brothers, Graham Parker, and Split Lip Rayfield (www.myspace.com/splitliprayfield), and heart-wrenching deal breakers from Sally Timms, Ryan Adams and The Deadstring Brothers. Special guest appearances by top-notch acts including My Morning Jacket, Richard Buckner, Sixteen Horsepower, Milton Mapes, Blanche, Crooked Fingers, The Court and Spark, Nine Pound Hammer, Yayhoos, Cordero, Graham Lindsey, and a glorious mess of others.

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

BLOODSHOT'S 10-YEAR ANNIVERSARY ALBUM!

http://www.myspace.com/bloodshotrecords

Eleven 11 years in the making, we're releasing our 10-year anniversary album, "For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records," on October 25. This 43-track, 2-disc celebration compilation includes a heaping serving tracks by your favorite Bloodshot artists and Bloodshot alumni -- Scott H. Biram (www.myspace.com/scotthbiram), Bobby Bare Jr. (www.myspace.com/bobbybarejr), The Waco Brothers, Graham Parker, and Split Lip Rayfield (www.myspace.com/splitliprayfield), and heart-wrenching deal breakers from Sally Timms, Ryan Adams and The Deadstring Brothers. Special guest appearances by top-notch acts including My Morning Jacket, Richard Buckner, Sixteen Horsepower, Milton Mapes, Blanche, Crooked Fingers, The Court and Spark, Nine Pound Hammer, Yayhoos, Cordero, Graham Lindsey, and a glorious mess of others.

thanks for posting that, I gotta have that right away!  curious to hear Nine Pound Hammmer again, those dudes rawk.

[LaurieBlue]

Anyone know what MMJ track will be included?

[Meat]

"Behind That Locked Door" -- A George Harrison cover

[havibulin]

I gotta say Laurie...you are the best at finding new info. Sometimes i wonder if this is your full time job! [smiley=bier.gif]

[LaurieBlue]

I gotta say Laurie...you are the best at finding new info. Sometimes i wonder if this is your full time job! [smiley=bier.gif]

Oh would that not be the ultimate?!

(anybody listening/reading? ;-))

Laurie

brb..gotta post another article lol

[dragonboy]

"Behind That Locked Door" -- A George Harrison cover

NO WAY!!!
I love Bloodshot Records & love that song!
Happy Happy Joy Joy... ;D

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.bloodshotrecords.com/album/bloodshotrecordscompilations/183

Not available yet, but they do have a nice page up now with more information.  No sound clips yet either.  

[dragonboy]

I've got my copy on order.
I'm SO buzzed about hearing this song!

[LaurieBlue]

//blog.myspace.com/bloodshotrecords

Monday, October 24, 2005

Someone Gets It! An Eleven Year Review!
Current mood: thirsty

From the always trustworthy, No Depression Magazine, we have a review for our eleven year compilation, For a Decade of Sin.

Various Artists
For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records

Commencing operations in 1994, Chicago's Bloodshot label has been playing by their own rules since the beginning. Shooting from the hip, listening to their gut, being ahead of the curve -- call it what you will, the upshot is a robust catalog that adheres to one credo: honesty. Call it country, punk, roots or any other name, then take that handle and throw it away. Bloodshot offers up musicians who kick their way out of the box, taking any labels pinned to their lapels against their will and setting them on fire.

The title of this 42 song set is apt, cramming eleven years into the delineation for ten, and also paying tribute to their first release, a compilation titled *For a Life of Sin*. It may be that it took Bloodshot a year longer than anticipated to come up with two discs of all new or previously unreleased recordings, but it doesn't matter. They went with what they had and ran it up the flagpole, unapologetically bending the definition of the word decade to fit their own needs.

Bloodshot's decision to not create a highlights anthology cherry-picked from their releases, shows spunk and confidence about the future. Indeed, this year has been rich with new titles from the Waco Brothers (Freedom and Weep is unblinking in its observational barbs and grounded by the unshakable verve of the playing) and Graham Parker & The Figgs (Songs of No Consequence finally puts him in the studio with a band worthy of his work with The Rumour), showing that the label continues to be a haven for artists who refuse to fit the rigorous and often misdirected expectations of more powerful corporate entities. It's a testament to those who have landed on or been in orbit around the label that they've used this opportunity to bring forth songs of a consistently high level. Far from being for-fans-only adjuncts or self-referential alternate takes, many sound like they could've been highpoints on their own albums.

Each of the two 21-song discs has the flow of a great radio show or a mix tape from a feisty lover. There are kisses and kicks, whispers and wallops. Four covers alone describe the breadth of these two-and-a-quarter hours: Sally Timms' free-ranging dreamscape version of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds," Dollar Store's straight reading of the ever-potent Robyn Hitchcock/Soft Boys classic "I Want to Destroy You," My Morning Jacket's take on George Harrison's overlooked "Behind That Locked Door," and The Yayhoos celebratory "Love Train" (following in the tradition of their version of ABBA's "Dancing Queen," they've recast it perfectly for cranked electric guitars).

Other highlights include the cross-generational pairing of Paul Burch and Ralph Stanley for the latter's "Little Glass of Wine," Eric Bachman's mysteriously heartbreaking "Ship to Spain" with his ensemble Crooked Finger, Scott Biram's hypnotically menacing "Blood Sweat & Murder," Nora O'Connor's hook-filled "Two Way Action" chock full of sweetly harmonized wordplay, and the we're-about-to-tip-over giddiness of "Sputnik 57" by the Minus 5.

Here's to eleven more years!

- David Greenberger

Currently listening:
It Still Moves
By My Morning Jacket
Release date: By 09 September, 2003

[whothrewthecake]

i want to hear the george harrison tune so bad!  :o

[Grizz]

For anybody who is already a member (or willing to sign up for a trial), this comp was made available for download today over at emusic.com.

[dragonboy]

Does anybody have the CD? Anybody heard the track?
Mine's on order but will take a week or so yet I guess  :-/

[whothrewthecake]

Does anybody have the CD? Aybody heard the track?
Mine's on order but will take a week or so yet I guess Ê:-/

let us know how it sounds!  :D

[Grizz]

I think it sounds great, kind of a throwback to an At Dawn-era style maybe.  They slowed it down a bit compared to Harrison's original, and Jim's voice seems perfect for it.

[peanut butter puddin surprise]

gotta get this...

[LaurieBlue]

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/comp/bloodshot/for-a-decade-of-sin.shtml

Various Artists
For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records
[Bloodshot; 2005]
Rating: 6.0

Maybe it makes sense on the business end, but from this critical perspective, For a Decade of Sin: 11 Years of Bloodshot Records seems a little strange: To celebrate a decade of existence and 125 releases, the Chicago label has released a two-disc compilation featuring numerous acts from other rosters. That's like putting ringers on your company softball team-- you're just admitting that no one in your office can connect bat with ball. But I doubt the compilers were thinking that way when they put together this 42-song tracklist; on the contrary, their aim is to show how the Bloodshot aesthetic has spread beyond the label's modest stable of artists into the wider indie realm.

However, For a Decade of Sin works on a much smaller scale; it's not so concerned with the larger state of the field as much as the confines of alt-country, a genre it didn't create but helped rear. This compilation doesn't present a unified Bloodshot aesthetic because there is no such thing: the songs show just how wide ranging alt-country can be, and the artists sound very different, despite grazing the same pastureland between country and rock, punk and a little bluegrass. So many cattle, so many different brands.

Some of these artists take a direct route and solder country sounds onto rock momentum. The results can be amazing-- or not. Bobby Bare Jr.'s "Ocean Size" gets by on the singer's unpretentious charm and vast longing, and Catfish Haven's catchy "Tell Me" heralds their Secretly Canadian debut next year, but the Deadstring Bothers' "Where Are All My Friends?" is weepy and self-absorbed and "Harridan of Yore" by Graham Parker & the Figgs just sounds like lo-cal Dylan. Other artists take a different tack and pick up where country tradition left off, reviving it faithfully or with an ear for how it never was. While dramatically different, Sally Timms' dusky version of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and Wayne Hancock and Hank Williams III's tear through "Juke Joint Jumping" sound like they could have been recorded in any of the previous four decades. Unfortunately, artists like Scott H. Biram, 16 Horsepower, and Nine Pound Hammer take one or two aspects from whichever tradition and exaggerate them to cartoonish extremes, but these eminently skippable tracks are partially redeemed by Mary Lou Lord, Cordero, the Court and Spark, Crooked Fingers, and Richard Buckner, whose sound is so natural and unfussy as to have very little obvious regard for any particular strain of influence.

Covers abound on For a Decade of Sin, showing a range of influences both old and new. Dollar Store turn in a limp retread of the Soft Boys' "I Wanna Destroy You" and Porter Hall TN do Jim Carroll's "People Who Died" note for obvious note. But My Morning Jacket's version of "Behind That Locked Door" possesses a sad gracefulness, and the Sadies help Andre Williams recover his classic "Shake a Tail Feather". The collection's best track-- cover or otherwise-- is courtesy of Milton Mapes, who finds a gem in the Cowboy Junkies lament "Now I Know".

All this variety suggests that Bloodshot is doing something right. It has made a name for itself in a niche market while at the same time proving that niche isn't so small. But what makes for a successful label doesn't always produce a good compilation. For a Decade of Sin is full of ups and downs and even a few sideways, and so lacks transitions and fluid sequencing. You'll probably listen to the whole thing all the way through only once or twice; after that, you'll most likely burn your favorite 10 to your iPod-- 15 if you're a real fan. Only about half of those songs will be Bloodshot recording artists.

-Stephen M. Deusner, November 8, 2005