THE BOTTLE ROCKETS
"ZOYSIA"
2006
42:50
1/Better Than Broken
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/4:05
2/Middle Man
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/3:52
3/I Quit
Brian Henneman/2:44
4/Happy Anniversary
Brian Henneman/4:50
5/Blind
Brian Henneman/4:50
6/Mountain to Climb
Brian Henneman/2:41
7/Align Yourself
Brian Henneman/3:06
8/Suffering Servant
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/2:47
9/Feeling Down
Voegele/2:52
10/Where I'm From
Brian Henneman/3:59
11/Zoysia
Taylor/7:04
Brian Henneman / Guitar (Acoustic), Piano, Guitar (Electric), Vocals, Clapping
Jackie Johnson / Vocals
Susan Marshall / Vocals
Mark Ortmann / Percussion, Piano, Drums, Drums (Bass), Tambourine, Clapping
Rick Steff / Organ
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
For about two years in the mid-'90, it looked like the Bottle Rockets were going to break out of the alt country underground and take their ragged-but-right Dixie-fried hard rock to the larger audience they deserved. But after Atlantic Records dropped the promotional ball on 1997's underappreciated 24 Hours a Day, the Bottle Rockets' fortunes took a turn for the worse and coincidentally, they also seemed to jump the groove in the recording studio; while the band never made a flat-out bad album, Brand New Year and Blue Sky failed to connect with the same degree of muscle, street smarts, and regular-guy philosophy they achieved with such apparent ease on The Brooklyn Side and 24 Hours a Day. Thankfully, 2006's Zoysia finds the Bottle Rockets finally back at full-strength again. Brian Henneman and company sound agreeably loose but totally emphatic on these 11 songs, diving into the tunes with the commitment of a veteran roadie who knows you can't rock out by worrying stuff to death, but still striking the targets with the right degree of force. This lineup of the Bottle Rockets -- with longtime members Henneman (vocals and guitar) and Mark Ortmann (drums) joined by John Horton (guitar) and Keith Voegele (bass) -- doesn't pack the firepower of The Brooklyn Side edition of the group, but they hit their marks with a graceful touch that doesn't keep them from bringing the rock to numbers like "Better Than Broken" and the title song. And Zoysia is the strongest set of songs Henneman has written since 24 Hours a Day, blending deeply personal first-person stories ("I Quit" and "Where I'm From"), meditations on busted romance ("Better Than Broken" and "Happy Anniversary"), and telling observations of the American political and cultural landscape circa 2006 ("Align Yourself," "Blind," and "Zoysia"). Henneman is that rare guy who writes from the heart and the gut, and can say something powerfully moving without getting pretentious; he's a seriously underrated lyricist, and his growling Neil Young-influenced guitar chords are just the right accompaniment for his words. Zoysia finds Henneman with a batch of fine tunes, a great band, and a producer (Jeff Powell), who can get it all on tape without either sapping their strength or getting in the way; the result is one of the best albums the Bottle Rockets have released to date, and a superb return to form from a great American band. Listen hard and turn it up.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jason Ankeny
Festus, Missouri's Bottle Rockets ranked as one of the leading lights of the 1990s roots rock revival, thanks to a sound that bypassed the punk heritage proudly upheld by most of the band's contemporaries in favor of a redneck fusion of Southern boogie, country-folk, and crunching rock & roll. The group was fronted by singer/guitarist Brian Henneman, a Missouri native who formed his first band, Waylon Van Halen & the Ernest Tubbadours, in 1977 with friends Tom and Bob Parr. After a succession of names and a steady rise in musical competence, the threesome began landing club dates both locally and in Illinois, where they became friends with the young Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, who would later start Uncle Tupelo.
In 1985, the trio was playing straight-ahead honky tonk under the guise Chicken Truck (so named in honor of the John Anderson song) with a new drummer, Mark Ortmann. Instead of giving in to local crowds who wanted to hear covers rather than originals, the bandmembers focused solely on performing their own material, which they began roughing up with a Crazy Horse-like edge. Shortly after frequent tour mates Uncle Tupelo signed a 1990 record deal, however, internal problems led Chicken Truck to disband; while the Parrs returned to civilian jobs, Ortmann moved to Nashville to become a session player, and Henneman became a roadie with Uncle Tupelo, even playing on their March 16-20, 1992 album.
During his roadie days, Henneman recorded a demo tape of new material, which Tupelo manager Tony Margherita began discreetly shopping around. After cutting a solo single backed by Farrar and Tweedy, he re-formed his old band with Ortmann on drums, Tom Ray on guitar, and Robert Kearns on bass, renaming the outfit the Bottle Rockets. After a 1993 self-titled effort, a year later the band issued its second independent LP, The Brooklyn Side, named after a bowling term. A portrait of life in rural blue-collar America, The Brooklyn Side was the subject of lavish critical praise, and the positive notices led to the band signing with a major label, Atlantic, which promptly reissued the album.
Shakeups at the label led to delays in the release of their next album, 1997's 24 Hours a Day, and when the album sold poorly, the Bottle Rockets were dropped. In 1998 they signed with the small Doolittle label and released an odds-and-ends EP, Leftovers; by the time they completed their next album, 1999's Brand New Year, the label had gained major-label distribution, but that deal proved to be short-lived, and in 2000 the Bottle Rockets were once again without a label. In 2001 they signed a deal with alt-country trailblazers Bloodshot Records; their first album for the label, a tribute to Doug Sahm, was released early the following year. Tom Ray left the Bottle Rockets in 2002, and the band moved ahead as a three-piece, signing yet another new record deal -- this time with Sanctuary -- in 2003, and releasing a new album, Blue Sky, in the fall of that year. Zoysia arrived on Bloodshot Records in 2006, followed by Lean Forward in 2009. In 2011 the band released Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening, which was recorded in an old schoolhouse and featured material drawn from all eras of the band's history.
"ZOYSIA"
2006
42:50
1/Better Than Broken
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/4:05
2/Middle Man
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/3:52
3/I Quit
Brian Henneman/2:44
4/Happy Anniversary
Brian Henneman/4:50
5/Blind
Brian Henneman/4:50
6/Mountain to Climb
Brian Henneman/2:41
7/Align Yourself
Brian Henneman/3:06
8/Suffering Servant
Brian Henneman / Mark Ortmann/2:47
9/Feeling Down
Voegele/2:52
10/Where I'm From
Brian Henneman/3:59
11/Zoysia
Taylor/7:04
Brian Henneman / Guitar (Acoustic), Piano, Guitar (Electric), Vocals, Clapping
Jackie Johnson / Vocals
Susan Marshall / Vocals
Mark Ortmann / Percussion, Piano, Drums, Drums (Bass), Tambourine, Clapping
Rick Steff / Organ
REVIEW
by Mark Deming
For about two years in the mid-'90, it looked like the Bottle Rockets were going to break out of the alt country underground and take their ragged-but-right Dixie-fried hard rock to the larger audience they deserved. But after Atlantic Records dropped the promotional ball on 1997's underappreciated 24 Hours a Day, the Bottle Rockets' fortunes took a turn for the worse and coincidentally, they also seemed to jump the groove in the recording studio; while the band never made a flat-out bad album, Brand New Year and Blue Sky failed to connect with the same degree of muscle, street smarts, and regular-guy philosophy they achieved with such apparent ease on The Brooklyn Side and 24 Hours a Day. Thankfully, 2006's Zoysia finds the Bottle Rockets finally back at full-strength again. Brian Henneman and company sound agreeably loose but totally emphatic on these 11 songs, diving into the tunes with the commitment of a veteran roadie who knows you can't rock out by worrying stuff to death, but still striking the targets with the right degree of force. This lineup of the Bottle Rockets -- with longtime members Henneman (vocals and guitar) and Mark Ortmann (drums) joined by John Horton (guitar) and Keith Voegele (bass) -- doesn't pack the firepower of The Brooklyn Side edition of the group, but they hit their marks with a graceful touch that doesn't keep them from bringing the rock to numbers like "Better Than Broken" and the title song. And Zoysia is the strongest set of songs Henneman has written since 24 Hours a Day, blending deeply personal first-person stories ("I Quit" and "Where I'm From"), meditations on busted romance ("Better Than Broken" and "Happy Anniversary"), and telling observations of the American political and cultural landscape circa 2006 ("Align Yourself," "Blind," and "Zoysia"). Henneman is that rare guy who writes from the heart and the gut, and can say something powerfully moving without getting pretentious; he's a seriously underrated lyricist, and his growling Neil Young-influenced guitar chords are just the right accompaniment for his words. Zoysia finds Henneman with a batch of fine tunes, a great band, and a producer (Jeff Powell), who can get it all on tape without either sapping their strength or getting in the way; the result is one of the best albums the Bottle Rockets have released to date, and a superb return to form from a great American band. Listen hard and turn it up.
BIOGRAPHY
by Jason Ankeny
Festus, Missouri's Bottle Rockets ranked as one of the leading lights of the 1990s roots rock revival, thanks to a sound that bypassed the punk heritage proudly upheld by most of the band's contemporaries in favor of a redneck fusion of Southern boogie, country-folk, and crunching rock & roll. The group was fronted by singer/guitarist Brian Henneman, a Missouri native who formed his first band, Waylon Van Halen & the Ernest Tubbadours, in 1977 with friends Tom and Bob Parr. After a succession of names and a steady rise in musical competence, the threesome began landing club dates both locally and in Illinois, where they became friends with the young Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, who would later start Uncle Tupelo.
In 1985, the trio was playing straight-ahead honky tonk under the guise Chicken Truck (so named in honor of the John Anderson song) with a new drummer, Mark Ortmann. Instead of giving in to local crowds who wanted to hear covers rather than originals, the bandmembers focused solely on performing their own material, which they began roughing up with a Crazy Horse-like edge. Shortly after frequent tour mates Uncle Tupelo signed a 1990 record deal, however, internal problems led Chicken Truck to disband; while the Parrs returned to civilian jobs, Ortmann moved to Nashville to become a session player, and Henneman became a roadie with Uncle Tupelo, even playing on their March 16-20, 1992 album.
During his roadie days, Henneman recorded a demo tape of new material, which Tupelo manager Tony Margherita began discreetly shopping around. After cutting a solo single backed by Farrar and Tweedy, he re-formed his old band with Ortmann on drums, Tom Ray on guitar, and Robert Kearns on bass, renaming the outfit the Bottle Rockets. After a 1993 self-titled effort, a year later the band issued its second independent LP, The Brooklyn Side, named after a bowling term. A portrait of life in rural blue-collar America, The Brooklyn Side was the subject of lavish critical praise, and the positive notices led to the band signing with a major label, Atlantic, which promptly reissued the album.
Shakeups at the label led to delays in the release of their next album, 1997's 24 Hours a Day, and when the album sold poorly, the Bottle Rockets were dropped. In 1998 they signed with the small Doolittle label and released an odds-and-ends EP, Leftovers; by the time they completed their next album, 1999's Brand New Year, the label had gained major-label distribution, but that deal proved to be short-lived, and in 2000 the Bottle Rockets were once again without a label. In 2001 they signed a deal with alt-country trailblazers Bloodshot Records; their first album for the label, a tribute to Doug Sahm, was released early the following year. Tom Ray left the Bottle Rockets in 2002, and the band moved ahead as a three-piece, signing yet another new record deal -- this time with Sanctuary -- in 2003, and releasing a new album, Blue Sky, in the fall of that year. Zoysia arrived on Bloodshot Records in 2006, followed by Lean Forward in 2009. In 2011 the band released Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening, which was recorded in an old schoolhouse and featured material drawn from all eras of the band's history.
