Slaid Cleaves Live 'Down At The Horseshoe Lounge'

In a completely unpublicized and hush-hush way, Slaid Cleaves recorded a live record at the Horseshoe Lounge last night (April 20, 2010). Well, it might turn into a live record. All the elements were there.

-Slaid and Michael O'Connor played a whole slew of his greatest hits.

-There was a gent there recording the whole thing to an Alesis 8-track recorder.

-A bunch of people somehow got word of the show and brought their friends (I'd estimate the crowd at around a hundred folks).

-The crowd was very quiet, enthusiastic and appreciative (which if you've been to the 'Shoe, you know is not the case. Ever.)

-Slaid hedged his bets after the first warm-up song saying that they were recording and if the recording turned out well, it might make it onto a cd. He didn't say the words "Live CD" so I reckon it could end up as filler at the end of a studio record. Then again, he didn't not say "Live CD" so who the hell knows?

-Slaid also encouraged folks to play shuffleboard and pool (but not the jukebox). I can only presume this encouragement was geared towards capturing some of the ambiance that drives the character of the Horseshoe.

I have loved Slaid's music for a long long time and honestly wonder why it took so long to have a run at making Live 'Down At The Horseshoe Lounge' happen (or whatever the name ends up being if at all). I'm glad it happened when it did and glad I was able to be there. I hope Team Slaid are able to get something usable from last night. And if they didn't, maybe they'll try again sometime soon.

Slaid has a penchant for taking his time in between studio records with new original material [Broke Down in 2000, Wishbones in 2004 and Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away in 2009]. I mention that only because a live cd would help fill some of the gap between the last album and the next in the same way that Unsung did in 2006 [sidebar: damn, seems to me like it was more recent than 2006].

In digging through my own Slaid archives, I found two live recordings of "Horseshoe Lounge" five-and-a-half years apart that I've included below. The first of which is from Little Brother's in Columbus, OH amazingly / coincidentally six years to the day from yesterday's show. The other is from the Cactus Cafe this past December. [Download the mp3s from the links below]

2004.04.20 - Little Brothers - Columbus, OH


2009.12.10 - The Cactus Cafe - Austin, TX

[FairRetailRecordings] #0057 -- Slaid Cleaves -- New Year's Day

#0057

Here's to 2010 being a better year than 2009, no matter what kind of year you had.

Artist: Slaid Cleaves

Date: 2004.04.20

Venue: Little Brothers

Track: New Year's Day

Enjoy. And support your local music scene.

[FairRetailRecordings] #0052 -- Slaid Cleaves -- Merry Christmas From The Family

#0052

Slaid covers Robert Earl Keen to kick off our Christmas coverage here at FRR HQ.

Artist: Slaid Cleaves

Date: 2005.11.23

Venue: The Saxon Pub

Track: Merry Christmas From The Family

Enjoy. And support your local music scene.

[FairRetailRecordings] #0042 -- Slaid Cleaves -- Texas Top Hand

#0042

Here's another from the dusty back bins.  Slaid Cleaves with Michael O'Connor, Ivan Brown and Rick Richards perform a cover of Don Walser's "Texas Top Hand" from 2004 at the now sadly defunct Little Brother's in Columbus, Ohio.

Artist: Slaid Cleaves

Venue: Little Brother's

Date: April 20, 2004

Track: Texas Top Hand

Enjoy.  And support your local music scene.

[FairRetailRecordings] #0007 -- Slaid Cleaves -- Open All Night

Here's one of my favorite covers from one of my favorite shows. This cover of the Boss' "Open All Night" is from Slaid Cleaves' first (and only) Summer Bash in 2005 that featured Graham Weber and Hayes Carll.

Artist: Slaid Cleaves

Venue: The Pier, Austin, TX

Date: 2005.06.04

Track: Open All Night

Enjoy. And support your local music scene.

A Baker's Dozen Perfect Records Of The Last Ten Years

Lots of great records come out every year but so very few of them are perfect. Lots of great artists go a whole career without ever even coming close to touching the sun. Perfect means you wouldn't change the songs, the order, the arrangement, the players or anything else about the record. There's something else, something transcendent about the records on this list. After one or a dozen or a hundred listens, the record is still as fresh and brilliant and perfect as when you unwrapped it from the plastic.

Here's the list of alt512's Thirteen Perfect Records Of The Last Ten Years (1999-2008).

In no particular order other than almost alphabetical:
1 Adam Carroll -- Live At Cheatham Street Warehouse
2 Scott Miller -- Citation
3 Corb Lund -- Five Dollar Bill
4 Daddy -- At The Women's Club
5 Danny Schmidt -- Little Grey Sheep
6 Fred Eaglesmith -- Balin'
7 Guy Clark -- Cold Dog Soup
8 Mike McClure -- Twelve Pieces
9 Reckless Kelly -- Wicked Twisted Road
10 The Stillwater Pioneers -- Let's Go Pioneering
11 Verlon Thompson -- Everywhere...Yet
12 Brian Keane -- I Ain't Even Lonely
13 Deadstring Brothers -- Starving Winter Report

**The two records in bold are, as far as we can tell, the debut offerings from these artists.

Some would argue for Slaid's Broke Down or Wishbones or Bingham's Mescalito or Hayes' Flowers and Liquor or the Gourds Blood Of The Ram. Alas, great records all. Perfect...close.