Countrypolitan Favorites

What I've been listening to the past week or so: the latest album by Southern Culture on the Skids, a covers collection of some of the songs that most influenced them entitled Countrypolitan Favorites. I was initially disappointed when I heard about this--their last album was a live concert album, and now a covers collection; one has to hope someone doesn't have writer's block. But I've really been digging their surprising take on songs I'm familiar with as well as several songs I'd never heard of. (Note: if you buy the CD, be sure to get it at an independent record store, where it will come packaged with a special indie-only SCOTS four-track bonus disc.)

My favorite is the old Lynn Anderson song, "(I Never Promised You a) Rose Garden." I love Mary Huff's voice--her songs on SCOTS records are always something to look forward to. Something always gets me about taking a song like that and forcing it into a more upbeat tempo.

For those unfamiliar with SCOTS you may recall their appearance as the band at the beginning of I Know What You Did Last Summer. Or maybe you heard their minor hit, "Camel Walk," which they performed on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno way back when (lyrics: "Baby, would you eat that there snack cracker in your special outfit for me, please? Baby, you make me want to walk... like a camel. The way you eat that oatmeal pie just makes me want to die!").

I've been listening to them for about 15 years now. I was hard-pressed to explain to people what exactly their music was until I saw them listed in the category of "psychobilly." That's a good description. While they may appear to be making fun of the image they are projecting, they are also embracing it wholeheartedly.

Though SCOTS is a local band I heard them first on CD, having shunned their live shows because I thought they were a straight country group. And at their live shows you might find boxes of fried chicken, biscuits, and little cups of banana pudding being passed around (uh, food has featured prominently in several of their songs; see "Camel Walk," "Eight Piece Box," and others), and a masked wrestler may also make an appearance. It is better experienced rather than described.

P.S. My other favorite local band is Two Dollar Pistols. While I don't profess to be a country music fan, I love that honky-tonk Dwight Yoakam/pre-Hee Haw Buck Owens sound.