William Hut
“Road Star Doolittle”
(Five One Inc.)
Seriously, Uncle Tupelo and Whiskeytown (among others) were right on the money when they jumped on the alt. country bandwagon. I distinctly remember going to Mark’s Guitar in San Diego to buy my first Stratocaster and having the guy who helped me explain what alt. country is. I thought the guy was crazy and taking into consideration that he was all tatted up it just didn’’t make any sense.
Meanwhile years later I realized what this guy was talking about. Alt. country is not the same as Country. In fact, I’’ve played an Uncle Tupelo disc for a chewing, boot wearing, self-proclaimed “good old boy” and he thought they were complete shit. Alt. country describes among other things the chords a guitar uses, flow of the tracks, vocals and overall demeanor of the musician.
The point is that William Hut and bands like William Hut are so damn good, but these bands probably won’t get credit for this type of sound for years. It usually happens when the rest of the world wakes up and popular culture embraces the scene. Sort of like what is happening with the emo thing which has been around since the late 1980s. If you want to be on the cutting edge of indie, buy this record, it’s fucking spectacular (probably my favorite in this genre all year); if you want to wait for everyone else go ahead, you aren’’t that cool.
