More Crossover Activity

No, I didn't give up beer for Lent... it's just taking a while to finish off the case of River Horse ESB (to be reviewed shortly) that I received after a friend's Super Bowl party.

In other news, however, I've been lucky enough to be selected as a judge to help pick the 100 greatest drinking songs of all time, a project originating with the kind proprietor of Big Rock Candy Mountain.  The list is fairly heavy on country material (as one would expect), but here are a few of my personal favorites for consideration.

• Scrawl -- Green Beer (from "He's Drunk," Rough Trade US, 1988)
  
• Scrawl -- Rot (from "Smallmouth," Rough Trade US, 1989)
  
• Scrawl -- Rocky Top (from "He's Drunk")

Scrawl was a fantastic country-tinged rock band from Columbus, Ohio who had one of the worst runs of record-label-luck imaginable.  These three songs are from their second and third LPs and run the gamut from a song about keggers to a breakup song that ends in drinking to something one might expect to hear at the end of a homesick drunken evening.  It's worth tracking down just about anything they recorded.

• Polkacide -- Who Stole The Keeshka? (from "Polkacide," Subterranean, 1986)
• Polkacide -- In Heaven There Is No Beer (from "Polkacide")

Polka is happiness.  Polka is barroom and dancehall music.  Polka is drinking music.  I could have added the punk/polka version of "Roll Out The Barrel," but I prefer "Keeshka" -- and "In Heaven..." is just too surreal to leave behind.  Polkacide recorded this first album in 1986 in San Francisco and still plays from time to time today, including a gig last Saturday in Oakland.

And from previous posts in the Deadly Tango / Malt & Barley axis:

• Crawling Chaos -- Guinness (from "The Gas Chair," Factory Benelux, 1981)
  
• The Cannanes -- Take Me To The Hotel, Johanna (And Let's Trash The Joint) (from "A Love Affair with Nature," Feel Good All Over, 1990)

I'll be sure to file another report once the judging is in full swing...