a tennis ball off a wall

Butch Hancock laying down a formidable palindrome.

Uncle Tupelo, "Blues Dies Hard" (bonus track on No Depression)
Butch Hancock live at the Red Dragon, Baton Rouge, 2/10/2011
Neil Young, Le Noise
Dinosaur, Jr., Bug

I've never heard this song at the tail end of the bonus tracks of No Drepression, after all the herky jerky bouncing post punk angst off the grain silos, like a bored kid does a tennis ball off a wall. With focus. "Blues Dies Hard" though is a different sort of thing. I suspect it's a cover I don't recognize (sounds like Dinosaur, Jr.), or a Neil Youngism growing hot in young Jay Farrar's pocket but it is lovely lovely. It sounds like the speakers went out in your car. I thought it made me want to hear the new Neil Young, despite the way I think Daniel Lanois generally over butters the toast he is privaleged to get. The butter-to-toast ratio is just right on this one.


Here are all five of the Butch Hancock performances I caught the other night: "Spilt and Slide pt.1", the palindrome thing from above, a cover of Townes Van Zandt's "If I Had No Place to Fall", a new song "Danglin' Diamonds" and a song he wrote for his fellow Flatlander Joe Ely, "If You Were a Bluebird" performed with Gina Forsyth on fiddle.