Here’s the gimmick: Each week, we’ll pick two local bands — an opening act and a headliner — link to a site where you can listen to their songs for free, then ask you to spend a few moments of your precious time to tell us what you think about them. Some may be great, others may be mediocre or awful — that’s for you to decide — all we ask is that you listen with an open mind.
Opening act: The Bushy Valley Boys
The Bushy Valley Boys
They are so consistently enjoyable to listen to, in fact, that I don’t really have much more to say about them. They’re good, but in sort of an all-around sense. And since they lack a gimmick (like Luther Wright & The Wrongs‘s or Hayseed Dixie‘s rock covers, for instance) or a real show-stopping frontperson — not to mention that they are playing the same standards that most bluegrass bands play — I’m kind of stuck coming up with anything more to say that that. They’re good, but not particularly memorable.
Putting them in a regional context, I’d say that they aren’t wild-eyed Newgrass barnstormers like, say, The Sons of Ralph, and they aren’t stomp-driven traditionalists like County Farm. They also aren’t performance-based experimentalists like The Rib Tips. But I would say that the Bushy Valley Boys could share the stage with any of these acts, and could easily hold their own when it comes to playing.
Their MySpace page has a small but worthy collection of songs. Personally, I find their version of the country standard “I’d Rather Die Young” to be among the best of the batch, but they do a fine version of Flatt and Scruggs’ “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” too. Now, if only they could find something to help them stand out from the crowd …
Headliner: Hedless
Hedless
But the truly surprising thing is that his music is actually pretty interesting. Sure, he’s not the best rapper out there, and he has a lot of work to do when it comes to mastering the flow. And, yes, his beats and overall production need a lot of improvement. But, when you strip all that away and actually look at the basic content — the basic ability to tell an interesting story with compelling language and imagery in rhyming verse — it’s almost impossible to see Hedless as anything a genuine musical voice from his community.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk about the music. Or, rather, let’s let the music speak for itself …
That was the song “My Yard,” and in places it was actually brutally clever. But what’s more interesting — not to mention surprising — is that the song works at all. It shouldn’t at all, but somehow it does. Let’s take a look at the opening lyrics (which also function as the chorus) …
We got the car in the yard that don’t run
with the grass growing up under tha fender
and the grass up under that mug is like ten inches long
and some parts we ain’t got none at allIt’s just dirt with some seeds on the top
and some part of the yard have got water standing in it
but the water ain’t water, it’s just white stuff
looking like suds and it’s been there for a minute
There is only one rhyme here — “in it” and “minute” — and the meter is erratic at best. Yet Hedless charges right on with the song, hoping that his phrasing will make up for the flaws. For the most part, it does, his accent twisting some of the words so that they nearly rhyme. (This isn’t exactly new, by the way. Oblique rhyme and assonance are both major elements in modern hip-hop.) The interesting thing is that Hedless appears to be far more interested in telling a story than he is in getting the rhymes or the rhythm right.
Take this segment, the first proper verse from “My Yard” …
I walk out my front door
and my crack-head neighbor’s coming over
trying to steal my gas canI tell him that if he comes over again
I’m gonna get him for tress-pass-in’He came over to borrow a car jack
but his arm’s too feeble to pick it up, ’cause of all the crackAnd do you think I was gonna help him? No
I don’t like the people who do the blow
There’s certainly some rhyme there, and the meter is more regular than it was in the chorus, but both take a backseat to telling the story.
And that story? That crackheads are a nuisance, and that Hedless’ other neighbors are jerks too. One he claims to be ready to beat up, and he claims to be having passionate sex with the abused wife of a third one. In a way, he’s bought into the time-tested rap formula of bragging, only instead of it being about how much money he has, it’s about how he’s not a drug-addicted, petty or wife-beating man, which is how he perceives those around him. He’s bragging about not being a horrible person, basically.
Which is all fine — even admirable, in a weird way — until he starts talking about beating people up with a baseball bat. He alludes to being reluctant to beating up his “crackhead neighbor” in “My Yard,” hinting that the threat of a baseball bat is enough, but in the song “Batter Up,” the sports-gear-turned-weapon plays a much larger role.
I don’t need a gun
I got a baseball bat
Comin’ straight for ‘em
Wherever haters at
And …
You got a gat
I got a bat
What are the odds of you winning
and me losing in my front yard?
And …
I swing my bat
and you shoot your gun
Just to see how fast
A fruit loop can run
And also …
But I will hit you with a bat, if you come closer
Your family’s gonna need some closure
And definitely can’t forget …
I’ll let you hold my bat
To make the fight fair
Cause I got big hands
Somewhat like a bear
Looking at this now, it’s almost impossible to understand how these lyrics can be made into a workable song. But somehow, Hedless consistently makes them work far better than they should. When the rhyme falls apart — something that happens about a third of the time — it really doesn’t matter all that much because Hedless knows where he’s trying to go with the music. Even when it shouldn’t work, it still kind of does.
I don’t mean to imply that Hedless only writes about threating people with sporting goods. The song “Can’t Get a Break” is a reasonably good track about struggling with poverty, while “Let Go” appears to be about a relationship, but is more interesting as a club-oriented experiment. The song “3 Xs” is kind of hardcore examination of being straight-edge. Even when it doesn’t work — which is perhaps half of the time — it never fails to be interesting.
Give him a better producer, a few years honing his writing and a lot more time around other rappers to pick up some pointers about flow, and Hedless might actually become a legitimate hip-hop voice for the area. He’s already got the most important thing — something interesting and unexpected to say — and the rest is just craft.
All that said, however, I do have some reservations when it comes to Hedless’ presentation. For one thing, it’s hard not to find a troubling irony in the fact that Hedless’ MySpace page shows him proudly standing in front of a Confederate flag — a symbol almost universally seen as racist, or at least racially insensitive — despite the fact that the musical tradition he’s pulling from is very much that of African-American culture. I suspect Hedless is just trying to show that he’s from the rural South, an area where Confederate flags are as common as Tweetie Bird t-shirts and frosted bangs, rather than making some anti-black statement. But a number of people casually looking at the page would stop right there, never bothering to wait for the music player to load. When you are talking about hip-hop — a form of music with an overwhelmingly black listenership — this kind of thing can greatly impact your potential fanbase.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Hedless is also an aspiring comedian, so it’s hard to tell if these songs are meant to be genuine stories, or more meant as comedic examinations of the “blue collar” (read: white trash, trailer trash, redneck, hillbilly, etc.) lifestyle. Having grown up in poor in the South, I can certainly sympathize. I’m guessing Hedless’ music is coming from an honest place, but it’s possible — if unlikely — that he’s actually doing the opposite and making fun of an already disempowered community that really doesn’t need to feel any worse about itself.
Now, it’s your turn. I’ve put my views out here on the digital page, but you can correct, amend, disagree, refute and rebut any and all of it by commenting in the field below. Notice something about the bands that I missed? Write a comment. I’ve had my say, now it’s all about you.
Steve Shanafelt
I consider the Bushy Valley Boys as much a part of Spartanburg as the BB@T building. They’ve been doing shows consistently for many years around town, probably long before the BB@T building was even around. Some of their members have been hosting the jam night at the Nu-Way every other Thursday for a good while too.
..They may not be into the newgrass genre, aside from a unique version of “Losing My Religion” from REM, but playing those old standards really takes me back to when I played those old songs in past bluegrass bands, and knowing the history of the music and the songs really adds an air of appreciation to hearing them played, for me anyway.
..They’re just good ‘ol boys doing what they love to do and having a great time doing it, and that really adds something to seeing them perform. Seeing them having such fun up there is contagious to the audience, and the good vibes resonate through the crowd.
.. Hedless is one of a kind, that’s for sure. He just puts himself out there, take it or leave it, love it or hate it, it’s just who he is. I don’t think he’s trying to emulate anyone, which is really rare these days, and he doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is something I see as totally appealing in music, art, and everything.
.. You point out that he may be disenfranchising some potential listeners with the confederate flag, but I don’t think he really cares. People who see the flag and think “racism” have been conditioned to think that way and don’t understand history, in my opinion. The Civil war wasn’t about slavery (I scream from the hilltops) it was about states rights, dag nab it. That, and how people thinking we live in a Democracy rather then a Constitutional Republic are kinda two of my biggest pet peeves, but I’ll get over it and off the subject before I cast into a rant.. (but I do see what you’re saying regardless)
.. He does kinda almost cross into the whole “novelty” category just because he seems to play off the whole “trailer trash” segment of culture, but is it really parody or is that his real deal? Life is crazy, and funny, why not rap about it, I think that’s what he did. I think that’s what’s so appealing about it.
Another such example of the art imitating life in the extreme southern fashion is a documentary out of West Virginia, where they originally wanted to do a story about a legendary tap-dancer and ended up making a “trailer-trash documentary” on the life of the dancers son, Jesco White.
.. Google that name for some crazy West Virginian hillbilly reality TV, so to speak, and you’ll see how people in a sub-culture can benefit from using such exploitation to their advantage.
Thanks for the plug Steve! People may start to think that we are in cahoots, that could be potentially damaging to your reputation. You’ve been warned, haha. Chris actually seems like a pretty cool dude, but, so does George Bush outside of the setting that he is currently in. Without further ado, The Bushy Valley Boys:
Anyone that knows me personally knows that I have a great love and respect for bluegrass. Especially good bluegrass, not that hippy jam band bluegrass fusion crap. I hate that. The Bushy Valley Boys, despite having a completely cliche name that could have been found at some obscure ‘bluegrass band name generator’ website, are one very talented and interesting band. I listened to their music in order on their myspace starting with “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” which is an instrumental track with abstruse noise and cheering in the background from what may very well be a crowd of kinfolk. They seemed pretty excited, possibly drunk and potentially naked so I’m in the process of putting myself into the same state. “Foggy Mountain Breakdown”, wonderful song but I like my bluegrass to tell me a story about the good old days, some hard working blue collar types and/or a sweet tall tale. Thank the Gods of bluegrass, because what came next was the story of Poncho and Lefty. Short and sweet synopsis of track #2, impervious. Track #3 starts off with a bit of a typical bluegrass banjo run, scale or whatever the hell that those things are called. I’m no banjo player, nor do I know their proper terminology. The chorus of “I’d rather die young” sounds very much like something that, with a few revisions, could be found with gang vocals on any hardcore album. Yet again another a great song. Damn it! I always speak too soon! “Holly Jolly Christmas”?! That’s the biggest problem that I have with bluegrass, Christmas tunes. I hate Christmas tunes. I hate them with a passion. I can’t be completely negative though, overall the Bushy Valley Boys are pretty bad ass band and I hope to see more of them in the very near future. Thanks Steve for broadening my horizons a bit.
Your friend,
Daniel
chAng: I’m not saying that the Confederate flag is absolutely racist — it’s a symbol of a lot of different things to a lot of different groups — but that for most people it’s pretty much a conversation killer. For a lot of black people, however, the Confederate flag is THE symbol of American racism.
As a white guy, it’s really easy for me to say, “Well, the situation is really more complicated than just slavery, and goes more to the deeper issue of States’ rights …” because I’ve never been called a racially insulting name from a guy with a Stars and Bars bumper sticker. Regardless of what the Civil War was really about, or what the Confederate flag(s) originally symbolized, to a good many people today, it’s basically the seen as the American version of the swastika. (Which was a perfectly cool symbol on its own until the Nazis got their hands on it.)
My only real point in mentioning it was that for an up-and-coming rapper, it might not be the best image to play use. Hip-hop is still a largely black music form, and evoking the Confederacy in that crowd rarely goes down well.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying, “the south will rise again, whoo!” or anything, and I do realize slavery had a strong economic role in the south at that time, as opposed to the North’s industrial force, but just that it’s been misrepresented, not by you, but in some history and media as being all about slavery. The 13th amendment didn’t even come about till after Lincoln’s death, and the emancipation proclamation only applied to states in rebellion, which also made it unenforceable at the time.
Just the frustration of a civil war history buff I suppose, but I saw your point. I just wanted to clarify that I was just ranting and wasn’t criticizing what you wrote.
I guess with him having that flag displayed it supports the notion that his performance isn’t an act, but his real life after all.
chAng: I figured that’s where you were coming from. I have my own pet peeves when it comes to history — don’t even get me started about the misrepresentations of Caesar’s assassination as a win for democracy, rather than a win for the aristocratic oligarchy — but I was mostly trying to hint that he might want to examine his image.
The confederate flag look great printed on underwear and swimsuits. See: Girls Gone Wild. See also: my bedroom on a Thursday night.
this is awesome. thanks for taking time to review me, the chorus in my yard was just something that came off the top of my head really fast, it was a 1 take thing, i didnt write it down, i know it doesnt really rhyme, thats why i dont even like that song, but my girlfriend does for some reason. lol so i made a video of it. if you were to listen to my old songs that i did in and around 2003 they are a lot different. a LOT more rhymes, and a lot better flow. the song i have called 211, is about robbing a bank, i consistently rhyme in that song. i just dont really listen to a lot of rap anymore, and im friends with more rappers now than i was when i rapped in 03-04 ive been recording music for 10 years. myspace.com/numbthecorpse im doing a death metal show this wednesday at ground zero.