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Review of Hayseed Dixie, Nov. 9, 2001 @ The Local 506, Chapel Hill, NC

The widespread club-level success of cover bands like the Back Doors, Zoso and countless Kiss tributes might lead one to believe that rock 'n' roll is being sucked up into it's own asshole. Having said that, I must admit that I've yet to see one that I dislike. In the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill area we have a few of our own. One is a Van Halen cover band called Fair Warning. The Roth is something else. Stage=amazing. Another is the more classy and highly popular tribute to Neil Diamond, The Neil Diamond Allstars, who do a show only once or twice a year. I'd pay $25 to see this band. And on Halloween, Matty and Vee Dee from my band and a couple other dudes did the "Rawmoans" - the Ramones tribute band, and it was right on.

Friday November 9 I had the opportunity to see a band that puts a pant pissingly funny twist on the whole thing: Hayseed Dixie - group of bluegrass musicians from Nashville dressed up like hillbillies that do AC/DC songs. This concept alone is undeniably cool. I love bluegrass (although I'm no connesuir), and AC/DC of course is the greatest rock 'n' roll band of all time. Each of the members has a Hayseed name like "Barley Scotch" and "Einus Younger" and "Kleitus Williamson". They wear fake big rotten hillbilly teeth and overalls - no shoes either. A fiddle player, a banjo player, a madolin player, a guit-fiddle player, and an acoustic bass player - no drummer - it's bluegrass. They have these funny little extras in the songs, like chanting "Oink! Oink!" in the beginning of "TNT" instead of the usual "Oi!"

Check out this photo. You know who that guy in the middle is, without the overalls? Yep. That's the REAL AC/DC bassist Cliff Williams. The boys in Hayseed Dixie were given the distinct honor to play a party at Cliff's cliffhouse (one of his houses) in the Appalacian mountains, and were more than generously compensated for it. Aint that some shit!

The mandolin player "Einus Younger" and the banjo player "Talcum Younger" are in reality the brothers Dale and Don Wayne Reno, "late and great Don Reno, the acknowledged innovator of the three finger roll on the five string banjo, and the co-author of the classic theme song from the movie Deliverance....Duelin' Banjos" (http://www.renobrothers.com). That shows you this band ain't a bunch of hacks. They got bluegrass in the blood, and they play like soul-hungry demons.

Along with the AC/DC songs the band played some traditional bluegrass like the "Circle Be Unbroken" (I don't know if that's the title but it's the one the Carter Family did). I think they also did a Kiss and a Cars song if I remember correctly. And they did songs from the band members' real bands.

According to John Wheeler, the whole thing started out as a joke. "We made the whole record in two days. Nobody ever thought it would be released or anything" (http://members.tripod.com/earcandy_mag/haydixie.htm). Now they are touring all over the place, playing at Cliff Williams cliffhouse and bringing bluegrass to a rock audience. It would be great if a whole new bluegrass revival was launched on the heels of the Hayseed. It would be a pant-pissing joke from the gods of American music. But American music is all intertwined anyway. Wheeler says in that same interview "It started to occur to me that there is a whole lot in common with roots rock 'n roll and old school country and bluegrass. Its coming in alot of ways from the same place. With very unpretentious lyrics, singing about the experience of working class and blue collar people in America. And dancing on your pain, essentially." (http://members.tripod.com/earcandy_mag/haydixie.htm).