Southern Culture On The Skids

http://www.scots.com
http://www.myspace.com/southerncultureontheskids

"Countrypolitan transcends music. It's a lifestyle, not a category of music," says Southern Culture on the Skids front man, Rick Miller. "It's where rural and urban sensibilities meet. I mean, it's when you see trucker hats being sold in Beverly Hills boutiques or notice folks eating pork in Mebane, where I live, drinking a glass of merlot. Or best yet, when you see a motor sport invented by backwoods moonshine runners and bootleggers broadcast on Sunday afternoon into potentially every living room in America, there ain't no doubt it's a countrypolitan world and SCOTS' new album, Countrypolitan Favorites, is the soundtrack for it."

Long the bards of downward mobility, Southern Culture on the Skids have always embodied countrypolitan. Recently described by Dwight Yoakam (in Filter) as "really on the outside, like Dick Dale meets Hank Thompson," SCOTS have mixed high and low culture for decades, endlessly touring, serving up moonshine martinis and poultry picking for fans everywhere. Now, with their new fifteen song covers collection, 'Countrypolitan Favorites', they've given the Go-Go country treatment to some of their favorite songs, creating a tasty buffet of tunes from Don Gibson to T-Rex.

Since 1983, when they formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, SCOTS have played their unique hybrid of Americana, surf, R&B, rockabilly, and swamp pop, all the while driving fans into ecstatic, sweat drenched paroxysms of joy. Assisted by his cohorts in white trash renaissance - drummer Dave Hartman and assist/singer/heartbreaker Mary Huff - Miller and crew have been prolific and ubiquitous for over twenty years. From their 1985 debut 'Voodoo Beach Party', to the international smash, 1998's 'Dirt Track Date' (featuring the hit single "Camel Walk"), and up to 2004's barnstormer 'Mojo Box', Southern Culture on the Skids have continued to throw what Rolling Stone dubbed "a hell raising rock and roll party." Their 2005 live outing, 'Doublewide and Live!', captured all of this on tape, dirty and rough and wild.

"Countrypolitan was an outgrowth of the Nashville sound of the 60's. It was an attempt to go more mainstream and put dents in the pop charts and create more sophisticated tunes - for country jetsetters," Miller says. "It was a deliberate blend of country and pop. I always think it's cool to blur the lines between genres," Miller adds, "But we took the countrypolitan concept a bit further, adding and subtracting, updating - getting respectfully irreverent, you know, close to the cuff but all mixed up."

When asked why the "countrypolitan" social phenomenon works so well when put into a musical context, Miller expounded, "It's an overlap of high and low culture. Homogenization, though probably not a good thing, makes for some interesting observations." Sounds like a true academic. But then Dr. Miller added, "But we're not sociologists or anything. I mean, we just want to party."

Mad Tea Party

http://www.themadteaparty.com
http://www.myspace.com/themadteaparty

9pm. $14 advance/$16 day of show.

Advance tickets available online and at our local outlets.

Standing room only.