i'm a fan of the old 97's but i found this whole thing to be rather self conscious and way too dramatic.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc ... -day/8598/

"On 9/11, after my girlfriend, Erica, and I left our apartment, we stopped to get supplies. I saw a red notebook on the shelf, and I grabbed it and grabbed a pen. Like everything else, all of my notebooks were trapped up in the apartment, and I was looking at an immediate future without being able to write down thoughts or song ideas."

ohmygod! immediate future? no pen? no converse sneakers?
god, i'm a bitch.

Considering his output since 2001, he must've lost that red notebook too.

He was in NYC during 9/11 close to Ground Zero, and he's sharing his thoughts from his journal...I'm pretty sure most people were dramatic 10 years ago when the planes hit the buildings.

I think both are true.

im with you

Seriously, it's like a plane flew into his creativity post-Satellite Rides

Dang. Tough crowd.

Rollerskate Sucky AMIRITE??!

Book of MEHms.

Still a very fun live band and the new stuff becomes acceptable with live energy and buffeted by all the great old stuff.

I guess it's been 5 or 6 years since I saw them - and despite not being loud enough, the show was pretty awesome.

FEMGAR usually refrains from commenting on dudes she'd fuh, but she remains in LURV with Rhett. So him and Alcide from Trueblood are the guys I need to keep an eye on should they come around.

By Chad Swiatecki | Sunday, December 28, 2008, 06:53 PM

Among the lessons learned at a pretty packed La Zona Rosa on Saturday night: the Old 97’s know how to cook.

Not in the culinary sense - though something suggests bassist Murry Hammond has got some “Top Chef”-level game - but in that way that only sun-seared southern roots and country bands can pull off.

It’s what happens when a song’s closing bridge turns into a greased lightning race track and every member of a band stays locked into a girder-strong rhythm playing faster (Faster, FASTER!) and not really soloing (despite guitarist Ken Bethea’s fingers literally dancing across his instrument’s neck) so much as twisting the song’s dominant key and melody inside out.

The Dallas combo’s old-reliable lament “Doreen” was the first song of several songs that cooked on Saturday, issuing a clear reminder that its country roots still run deep despite the Graham Parsons-meets-Big Star territory mined in recent records.

All facets of the Old 97’s were on display Saturday, from the power pop of “Murder (Or A Heart Attack)” and “Rollerskate Skinny” to rootsier back catalog stuff (“Barrier Reef,” “Here’s To The Halcyon”), making a case for the band as one of the more underrated of the last decade.

Not that any of that was on the foursome’s minds. Instead they were clearly unwound and carefree, “It ain’t punk, but it’ll do for now,” Hammond quipped about 90 minutes into a show that clocked in about two songs shy of two hours.

After an almost non-existant encore break, lead singer Rhett Miller returned alone to play a song destined for his about-to-be-recorded solo record (“the Old 97’s keep turing it down,” he joked) that we’re guessing is called “Two Is Enough, And You’d Make Three.”

After a Miller/Hammond on the pretty, yearning “Valentine,” Bethea and drummer Philip Peeples took their spots again for a powerful stretch run that included “Four-Leaf Clover” and closed with the band cooking again on the burly oldie (for them) “Time Bomb.”

Earlier in the night Hammond shared that with the band members now living in different part of the country it’s a treat to return to see family in Texas during the holidays and let loose at shows with familiar fans.

And it’s hard to argue with him. Clearly, the home cooking has done them good. —Chad Swiatecki