Reckless Kelly, Shinyribs, Darren Hoff & the Hard Times

For fifteen years Reckless Kelly has been doing things their way, bucking the mainstream system and playing by their own rules, straddling the fence between country and rock as if they built it themselves. Throughout the years their old school approach to recording has always adhered to one main objective: make each record better than the last. Their latest effort, "Good Luck & True Love" is no exception to this rule.

Recorded in an old farmhouse-turned studio in Austin Texas, and released on the… Show more bands new independent label "No Big Deal Records," "Good Luck & True Love" is pure, driving, uncut Reckless Kelly. The songs are all written or co-written by front man Willy Braun and range in subject matter from road songs, ("Weatherbeaten Soul," "Hit The Ground Running") to songs about music, ("New Moon Over Nashville," "I Stayed Up All Night Again") and songs about good old-fashioned heartbreak ("Guarded Heart," "She Likes Money, He Likes Love," and "I Never Liked St. Valentine"). The album is the 9th in RK's ever-growing catalogue and is the 3rd they have produced by themselves.

The Reckless boys also made it a point to track almost all of it live. Just 5 guys sitting in a room playing music, with minimal overdubs and aside from a harmony vocal from Dani Flowers, the band plays each and every instrument and part. "We wanted to make a record that sounded like we sound live, without any extra parts thrown in. We wanted it to sound like a band," said fiddle/mandolin player Cody Braun.

"Keeping it all in the same space and making sure it was an album rather than just a collection of songs was the main goal, and I think we came pretty close to what we set out to do...there's a lot of continuity within this project." The result is an album that encompasses the last 15 years of Reckless Kelly. Ten new songs that capture the essence of a road worn and battle scarred band of brothers that aren't afraid to take risks and tell it like it is. That's country rock. That's old school. That's Reckless Kelly.

"There are two kinds of people in Texas - those that got West Texas Dust, and those that got East Texas Rust. You got both of 'em!" - Doug Sahm to Kevin Russell

Hey, we all know Kevin "Shinyribs" Russell is a loose cannon. How else to explain covers of R. Kelly's "Feelin' on Yo Booty," and Elvis Costello's Indoor Fireworks" in the same night. Most folks who follow such things consider his outfit, The Gourds, one of the best live bands in the land, in large part because of Russell's brazen eccentricities and creative syntax.

However, the most overlooked thing about Russell is that when he plays it straight - as he does for most of his latest Shinyribs record Well After Awhile - the man can produce some of the funkiest and most beautiful roots music on the planet. It's not to say the "psycholiteranaut w/8 AA batteries-tweed facade-equal parts Waylon Jennings,Robert Rauschenberg and Harvey Korman" (to quote his Twitter feed) doesn't dig into his bag of twistedness here (witness "Poor People's Store"). But a listen to the straight-up duet "Shores Of Galilee" (with Sally Allen), the sweet quasi-fable "Who Built The Moon," or the intimate cover of Sam Cooke's "Change Gonna Come" that closes the record, shows that even when Russell puts aside some of the tricks, he delivers grade-A Country Soul.

Darren Hoff spent nearly a decade singing and playing guitar with The Weary Boys, a band who's roots trace back to Eureka California before the founding members moved to Austin in 2000. They crisscrossed the nation dozens of times and self released six records. The boys called it quits in the summer of 2007 and after finding his first day job in over six years Darren's first thought was "I better start writing some songs". Nearly two years later Darren Hoff and his new band dubbed "The Hard Times" entered Jumping Dog studio with 10 tunes penned by Darren and an old Charlie Poole song.

The selection and inclusion of Darren's new band-mates came through a mix of circumstance and intention. Ben Massey, lead guitar, relocated to Austin a decade ago from his native Maryland. He has played more than a thousand gigs with various acts around Austin, a good number of them opening for Darren's old band. Darren and Ben kicked around the idea of starting a side project together for years but both were too busy for it to get off of the ground. That changed early in 2008 when they got together to work on a few of Darren's songs, put together a set of covers, and started booking some off-night gigs as a three piece with various bass players.

Brandon Burke was next to join up with a simple "sure" when Darren asked him "hey we have a show tomorrow, do you want to play drums with us?" Burke a recent transplant from Yakima Washington with an odd musical background, a paring of Metal and Jazz might not have been an obvious choice but they immediately clicked.

Florida born engineer Jim Hawkins made his way to Austin via Hawaii, California and Belize. He became friends with Darren and Brandon when they worked together at a music shop. Early in the summer of 2009 he signed on to record and co-produce their self-titled first release. The recording process and working relationship was so fruitful with Jim adding keys to a few tracks that he started sitting in at live shows. It was quickly decided that his keyboards, harmony vocals and acoustic guitar were a perfect fit and before completion of the recording he became a full member.

After a handful of bass players used to gig they were fortunate enough to get legendary Gilley's bandleader and David Allen Coe alum Billy Dee to start the recording process laying down bass on 9 of the 11 tracks. Meanwhile former co-worker at the same music shop and lead guitar player in local indie rock band The Alice Rose Gregg White popped in to say hi and mentioned he had recently purchased a new bass. Well the Hard Times needed a bass player for a gig two nights later and Gregg fearlessly jumped aboard. One gig turned into another and Gregg ended up doing the final recording sessions for the record.
The quintet look forward to gigging, writing and recording for years to come.

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