Late Night OTB – Goddamn Lonely Love
I'm relaunching the old Late Night OTB music video series with a live version of a modern classic.
One of the side effects of the ongoing OTB site refresh effort is that I’ve spent quite a bit of time cleaning up things in the backend that no one outside the main posters see (and probably spending too much time cleaning up front end things like menus that few readers ever look at). Among the serendipitous effects of this is seeing not only old posts that I haven’t looked at in years but also revisiting old site concepts. While the old Beltway Traffic Jam is unlikely to see a revival, since it was an artifact of the young days of blogging, I’m going to experiment with a revival of the Late Night OTB music series.
I don’t have the patience for traditional radio anymore and, indeed, I finally gave up even on Sirius/XM because the commercials and inconsistency of programming was aggravating in an age where I expect to simply click “skip” and move on to something I might like better. And I mostly listen to podcasts on my commute these days. So I mostly discover new-to-me music while working out or walking, when I need to turn off the brain from concentrating on the firehose of new information.
A while back, via YouTube (I pay the 10 bucks a month for the Red service, which skips ads and allows downloading music to my phone) I stumbled on this:
I’ve been familiar with Jason Isbell’s work for years and, indeed, the song above is the one that first stuck with me. But I’d previously heard studio versions, both of Isbell as a solo artist and the version he wrote and recorded with the Drive-By Truckers back in 2004:
It’s a great song either way but I much prefer the stripped-down live version. Indeed, the main reason that I pay for the premium YouTube service when there are so many other music services out there is precisely the incredible variety of live cuts they have available.
I don’t have Red, but nearly all of the “new” music I’ve discovered in the last few years has basically come from YouTube.
Last week I put on some random stoner rock playlist and just let it play. One song in particular from an artist I never heard of hit me particularly hard. I listened to it a few times, sought out a few other tracks, listened to those. Finally, I went to Bandcamp and bought their album. I haven’t gotten the physical CD yet, but I have been listening to the download all week.
My Paypal receipt showed that the payment went directly to a guy in the band, which I thought was pretty cool.
PS. I like the stripped down version better, too.
It’s a great song. You should also check out “elephant” from his album Southeastern… but allow yourself a few minutes for recovery afterwards…
@wr: That’s a good one. I suspect there will be plenty of Isbell and the Truckers if the relaunch makes it worth sustaining.
Great song and performance by Isbell. I had never listened to Drive-By Truckers until some friends brought me to a concert last year. In general it’s good quality stuff but it hasn’t really piqued my interest.
@James Pearce:
I must be getting old – there’s a time when I would have appreciated those heavy ass riffs. But even then, that type of singing has never been my favorite.
@Franklin:
I know what you mean, but I actually liked the vocals. They’re heavy, but not screechy or death-growly.
That’s the stuff I can’t stand.