Steve Pride and His Blood Kin - Pride On Pride

Artist:Steve Pride and His Blood Kin Title:Pride On Pride Catalog#: Spur-CD-004 Price: $7.50 Also available for digital download from Emusic.com	Tracks on this CD:
	Hello...		Midnight Sun In a Blue Moon Town
	Drugs, Guns & Cigarettes		The Devil Said
	Lap Of Luxury		One Last Time
	I Prefer the Darker Side Of Life		The Immaculate Sound
	Big Money (live)		Hello, Hello
	Emmanuel (Windows Media)		Pride On Blood Kin "Pride Up The Backstretch"
	The Ghost Of Mary Magdalene
	Eva Peron		Phantom 102
			Lucky Stars
	The Last Bar In Town		Welcome To the Big Time
	Weinie Man		She Don't Wanna Know
	Daddy Played the Guitar		Chords of Fame (Ochs)
	Drive (live)

Wilco’s Jay Bennett (with the engineering assistance of Adam Schmitt) spent time in early 1999 compiling 21 tracks from the Steve Pride and His Blood Kin sessions in which he participated as a band member in the early ‘90s. Only two songs (in different versions) from Steve Pride’s well-received (MOJO, No Depression, Dirty Linen) 1997 solo release "Haint" appear here. The Blood Kin’s bassist Don Gerard encapsulates the band’s career arc below.

When Jay and I were compiling this collection I couldn’t help but think, "Damn, this stuff ain’t bad". Why not? The core of the band consisted of Jay Bennett (Now a "Grammy Nominated" artist with WILCO) and myself (survivor of Roadrunner Recording Artists Moon Seven Times).

We had a string of talented back beaters: Brendan Gamble (Poster Children, M7x), Bob Rising (Poster Children, Seam), Pat Hawley (lots of bands), Alex Moore (ditto) and Mike Hazelrigg (Titanic Love Affair). After we had sifted through all of the band demos and finished patting ourselves on the back, I happened across a tape of just Steve and his guitar...

It was every bit as powerful as the most raucous cacophony we ever mustered as a combo.

Round about the turn of the decade Steve asked me if I’d be interested in playing bass in a country band. I liked Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle well enough, but it wasn’t exactly the coolest thing around...Uncle Tupelo were up and coming, but the whole "insurgent country" buzz was still quite a few years off.

Steve thought he might have a shot at scoring a minor publishing deal and figured he might as well give the tunes the stage test as well.

By the grace of good fortune (and an ample supply of Jaegermeister) we wrangled Jay into doing some side work on the early demos...He never left.

Our boots hit the boards along with just about every rootsy act of the era: Jayhawks, Bottlerockets, Uncle Tupelo, Reverend Horton Heat, American Music Club, rockabilly legend Robert Gordon and a slew more I’ve long since forgotten.

Steve kept knocking out one great song after another (although time tends to make one a bit amnesiatic when it comes to the clunkers...) and he was pretty fast and loose with the cover selection as well (Porter Wagoner, Merle Haggard, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, Trad Arrang, etc).

While our contemporaries were preparing to "tribute" Gram Parsons to the point of tribulation, Steve was lauding Townes Van Zandt.

Like Townes, Steve could tell a story. His songs always seemed like Jim Thompson novels or Raymond Carver short stories set to music. "...Walking the darker side of the redneck, urban underbelly" or simply "...real life stories that could happen to anyone. Even you and me." (L. Duncan Monroe).

Steve would simply say, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him walk on it."

The songs included on this disc were never meant to be released on a CD and most of ‘em were

recorded on sketchy equipment in a dusty basement with no "engineer" (Jay would run upstairs, turn the tape machine on, run down and start playing).

Most of ‘em were meant for somebody else to sing (I still dream of hearing Lyle Lovett’s reading of "Last Bar in Town", Steve Earle’s take on "Immaculate Sound", and, well, just about anybody

try to ruin "Lap of Luxury").

Somehow maybe that is why these songs hold up so well. The guard was down, the beer flowed and we barreled through any mistakes or miscues.

After the band had more or less called it a day Steve was working as a stage hand at the University of Illinois’ Assembly Hall setting up a Garth Brooks show. As luck would have it, Garth enjoyed mingling with the crew and he joined Steve in the break room for a bite to eat and some casual conversation.

I asked Steve if he passed him a demo.

"Naw...he probably gets that shit all the time."

Too bad.

What country music needs right now is some Pride...

--Don Gerard (January 1999)

Flowonline review by Holly Day
Steve Pride and his Blood Kin
Pride on Pride
Spur/Parasol Distribution

Friggin' hard-core country music in the style of Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, with songs about rape victims, coke babies, getting drunk, the Virgin Mary, the Devil, drugs, guns-you name it. This is dark and scary shit, all sung in this beautiful, scratchy. world-weary voice that sounds like it's going to crack any minute. WILCO's Jay Bennett provides some amazing dobro work on here as well as most of the rhythm guitar and piano, while a slew of guest appearances--including Syd Straw, Brendan Gamble, Bob Rising (both Poster Children alumni), and many more round the album out.