Hillbilly rock n roll? You’ll be eating grits on the front porch after this
The acoustic guitar, it has to be said, is rather more versatile than you might think. You can use it to change the world like Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash, you can use it to write a love song, or you can use it for something else entirely.
As this album rather neatly proves.
Whiskeydick are arguably the biggest band you’ve never heard of. Their “Drunk As Hell” video has racked up millions of hits on YouTube, and they are given the full on Best Of collection treatment here.
As the name might indicate, Whiskeydick like drinking. On the evidence of the tracks here, other things they enjoy include fighting, totin’ pistols, smoking weed and generally being anti-social.
The band don’t seem to care if you pigeonhole them as Rednecks. They do it themselves on “Train Robbin’ Gun Toting Good Time Band” which is actually a lot cleverer than it sounds, given that it is Grand Funk Railroad’s “We’re An American Band” rewritten. “Yeehaw” is better still and carries some genuine menace.
Whiskeydick are not some godawful hillbilly Steel Panther, though, and can actually write some fine songs. “Help” manages to sound so much like Pride And Glory that you might want to get that record out for the first time in years, and “Fallen Heroes” is a piece of genuine tenderness worthy of Skynyrd. On the flip side of that you’ve got “Murder Love Song” which takes GnR’s “Used To Love Her” and decides it wasn’t violent enough.
The band know what they are: they tell you as much on “Gun Totin’ Rebel Son” which explains that their “lungs are filled with smoke and THC” and further offers this cheery thought. “I ain’t gonna be here long,” it offers “I’m a drinkin’ smokin’ gun totin rebel son.”
What this collection also shows is that Whiskeydick are marvellous. Potty mouthed and disgusting, yes, but marvellous all the same. Think of it like this. Readers of a certain age will remember the adaptation of Huckleberry Finn which used to be on TV in the school holidays. If that was the “awww-shucks-mamas-Apple-pie” side of Middle America, then “Welcome To Yeehaw County” is the kids who were giving Huck the middle finger while drunk, stoned and in the Meth Lab in the desert.
This is magnificently nasty stuff. If Pantera and Slayer (both namechecked here) formed an acoustic band with Black Label Society it would sound like this.
Rating 8/10
