Great album...puzzling article...Not Being Cool Enough
Have played through "New Seasons" 5 times now, I am of the opinion that it is by far the best record that The Sadies have released in their now nearly 10 year career. Expect my review of the album later today, which I will post right here first on Blue Rodeo.com.
As for Mike Usinger's nine page "No Depression" article on The Sadies, "Tales From the Cryptic: The Good Brothers shed light, and shadows on the slow-burning rise of the Sadies" with photographs courtesy of Beth Hamill (?), if anybody else has read it, tell me if I'm missing something because nowhere in the entire article is there any mention of the Blue Rodeo, Greg Keelor influence, help, production, promotion on these self-styled "Hillbilly Moderns'!?! My memory is fading slightly, but I still seem to recall that for nearly four years from 2000 to 2004, Blue Rodeo and especially Greg Keelor played an integral part in the musical development of the Sadies. So then why not acknowledge it, at least in one paragraph or one sentence? No, it's like that entire time period in the band's development was the...er, fallow, bad, slow era when they were going nowhere fast and only due to Neko Case, and then finally Jayhawks frontman Gary Louris, are The Sadies now able to soar to whatever commercial and musical heights they aspire to.
I don't get it. Is it just a mere oversight by The Sadies who are extensively interviewed or is it the author's license to edit out any reference to Blue Rodeo because they don't currently have the hip cred that musicians like Neko Case, the Jayhawks, Robyn Hitchcock, Gary Louris and Jon Langford have in the "ALT.COUNTRY" world of music?
Yes this is a bit of a rant, but I'm working out some ideas that have I've been bouncing around in my head for a year now about the whole mystique/mythos/allure surrounding this "alt.country" label that is so casually placed on so many bands and musicians nowadays. I do like the "No Depression" magazine and I still find that it is very informative about neo-traditional country stars and that it provides coverage and reasonalbly good reviews of the work of newer alt.country acts, but it looks like someone at "No Depression" is really trying to make a concerted effort to plug The Sadies as the next big thing...which they may in fact be, bless their nimble guitar playing fingers, BUT, why not acknowledge their real roots in Canada and the fact that for several years of their musical gestation, they hung with Blue Rodeo? To deny this vital major influence is doing The Sadies and any potential new fans a real disservice.
I'm not ready to say, "don't believe the hype" because The Sadies "New Seasons" is every bit as good as the 'professional' reviewers say it is, but when a supposedly reputable music magazine runs an article on them that doesn't ask the tough questions about well what about the band's roots...heck you could read this article and completely miss the fact that the Sadies are from Canada. Is being a country musician from Toronto, Canada not being cool...enough? Apparently to the folks at "No Depression", being Canadian and playing country music is not being cool enough. What if the Sadies were from North Carolina? And no offense is meant to any Board member from N.C. (I had a reletive who went to college in the great state of N. Carolina) Oh, yes! then bring 'em on home man! These boys is real cool now y'all.
Bottom line, journalism is no good if it doesn't report the whole story...warts and all. In their early days, Rolling Stone writers did this faithfully, by going behind the scenes of the hyped-up world of rock stars and the rock world to enlighten us about what was really going on with our heroes. "No Depression" just seems to be drifiting more and more into the "hype" end of the music press business and further and further away from getting the truth out about musical artists. Let the reader decide, or in their increasingly obvious smugness about what is supposed to be so cool in alt.country music, do they presume that we the readers are just too stupid to "get" it?