Music on Jackson Taylor

Deer Tick Announce New Album - Emotional Contracts

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 13:37:11 -0400

I don’t think I’ve actually mentioned it explicitly on my site anywhere, but I consider Deer Tick to be my favorite band of all time. I don’t listen to them as much as I did a few years ago (I used to listen to their whole albums over and over), but I don’t skip their songs very often. I found them after watching an episode of “Son’s of Anarchy” and their song “Goodbye, Dear Friend” played. Google play music (at the time) started playing radios with more of their songs, and I was hooked. My favorite songs of theirs are probably “Sea of Clouds” and “Don’t Hurt” of off their albums “Deer Tick Vol. 1” and “Deer Tick Vol. 2” respectively. They also play my favorite cover of all time of “Unwed Fathers” by John Prine, which is just outstanding if you haven’t heard it.

Anyway, that’s to say I keep up with them and this is a big deal! Today they announced a new album called “Emotional Contracts” set to come out on June 16th and released 2 songs from the album! The songs are called “Forgiving Ties” which was accompanied with a video, and “The Real Thing”.

Deer Tick’s sound has changed over each of their albums pretty drastically. They are not afraid to do things differently than they have before, and that have been done by others before, which are some of the reasons I love them so much. They seem like they are gonna keep that up for this new album. Although none of their records really sound the same, “Forgiving Ties” is the most “Deer Tick” out of the 2 new singles. It’s upbeat, and has Ian O’Neil on vocals with the rest of the band coming in throughout the song, and reminds me of their other song “Mr. Nothing Gets Worse”. “The Real Thing” is a lot slower and gravely with John McCauley singing it, it’s also the longer of the 2 at exactly 9 minutes long. I think out of the 2 I prefer “Forgiving Ties”, but both are awesome. The song “If She Could Only See Me Now” will also be on the album, which appeared on their “Live From Fort Adams” album from 2020. It’s a good song. This one is sorta boppy and is a big middle finger to the girl he’s talking about, and how he’s doing better now that she’s gone. I’m glad it’ll be getting a studio version.

They’ve also posted tour dates for the album, but the closest one to me is in a different state, so I may have to do some traveling to go see them. I was robbed of seeing them in 2021 because the venue either changed their vaccination policies or didn’t advertise them well enough, and I didn’t have enough time to get it done. I was so bummed.

If you aren’t sure who Deer Tick is, or you’re just curious go listen to them! John McCauley also has a few side projects like Middle Brother (I think they are disbanded unfortunately, but this band will introduce you to Dawes which is a phenomenal band as well), Diamond Rugs, as well as some solo stuff. Ian O’Neil also has a few solo albums which are really good as well.

2023 Plans

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0400

Happy New Years! If you’ve followed some of my other blog posts you’ll know that I like posting my new year goals and music year-in-reviews.

I mentioned last year that I hurt my back on a trip to Virginia beach, and that has significantly worsened unfortunately. Long story short, I have a herniated disc between the L4 and L5 vertebraes in my back. It started out as mild discomfort, then leading to major pain one morning, then to mild sciatica that I let go undiagnosed/untreated for over a year. I then went kayaking and could not walk without severe pain the next day which prompted me to go to the doctor and after about 3 weeks was told I had herniated the disc. That was in October, and I am still in pretty severe pain. I plan on making a larger article about my recovery process when I’m able to return back to normal life.

I’m 10 pounds lighter than last year though, so I didn’t let my diet totally go out the window. I’ve been maintaining that weight for the entire time.

Overall, 2022 was not a very good year for me. Personal matters, along with this injury have really just brought me down. Music wise, it’s been awesome though. Zach Bryan, Koe Wetzel and Tyler Childers all put out albums, and I found a bunch more artists I love.

I use YouTube Music for the moment, and I did get a year in review thing. It was really buggy, but it claimed that I am in the top 4% of Zach Bryan listeners, and “Starved” by him was my most listened to song. It still does not count downloaded songs because it would have put “Burn Burn Burn” way higher. Koe Wetzel was also high up on my list, and so was Charles Wesley Godwin.

It’s hard to sit and write for a long time, but I plan to make an in depth review of my year in review.

For 2023, I want to finish the transfer of my site to Hugo. It’s mostly done at the moment, but I am still fighting with single pages and the rss feed.

That’s pretty much it for this year. My main resolution/goal is to fix this disc issue, then I will reassess when that is normal.

2022 Summer Music Recap

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 00:00:01 -0500

My job picks up during the summer and beginning fall months, so that’s why I haven’t been as active with posting on this site. I’ve got some plans for the site, mainly converting it to Hugo. Which I’ve gotten decently far with, I just have some decisions to make because it won’t be a 1:1 copy over from what I can tell. I was hoping it would be ezpz and if I weren’t to announce it, no one would be able to tell the difference.

Anyway, since I’ve been busy with work I’ve been listening to a lot of music. And this year has been AMAZING for it. I said I was going to do another post about my summer recap if it came out. From what I’m reading, it did come out, but I missed it :(. Oh well, I’ll catch the next one. I’ll just go over what I’ve been listening to and liking. These won’t be in depth reviews like the American Heartbreak one, but I’m going to list out the albums that I was excited for and what I thought about them. If anyone wants an in depth review on any of these, email me.

The End, So Far - Slipknot

I love Slipknot, and most of whatever Corey Taylor does. I haven’t finished listening to this one yet. Adderall kinda shocked me, it had a groovy kinda feel to it that wasn’t bad, but I didn’t think Slipknot would try (Corey Taylor, maybe, but not Slipknot). I thought their last album was ok, I didn’t like it as much as their previous ones. But I’m always happy to see them do stuff.

Hell Paso - Koe Wetzel

I think someone needs to check on Koe. This record was so incredibly sad. It’s got so many great songs, but they make me question Koe’s mental health. I give it an 8/10. Favorite song is probably “So Low”.

Summertime Blues - Zach Bryan

Zach Bryan can pump out some songs man. A whole new album less than 6 months after American Heartbreak is insane. This one has some really good ones on it that he includes in his concert rotation (I saw him in September). I really like “Motorcycle Drive By”, “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and “Jamie (feat. Charles Wesley Godwin)”. I give this an 8/10 mainly because it STILL doesn’t have “Sunday Afternoon” on it.

Here are some albums that I hadn’t heard before, but aren’t really new.

No Vacancy - Treaty Oak Revival

I hadn’t heard of these guys before until I heard their song “Missed Call” the other day. These guys are super underrated, and they’re going to blow up, there’s no way they don’t. This album is so good, it’s crazy this is their first one. They have a sort of familiar sound, but not at the same time. I highly recommend giving this one a listen.

How the Mighty Fall - Charles Wesley Godwin

I’ve known about CWG through Zach Bryan for a while, and I really liked the song “Seneca Creek”. I wasn’t really a fan of his singing style, it was kinda shaky or warbly or whatever, and wasn’t my cup of tea. I went to a concert with CWG opening for Zach Bryan, so I figured I’d listen to his new album so I wouldn’t be totally lost. This has some really good songs like “Temporary Town” and “Jesse” that I love and was very excited to hear at the concert. This is a smaller artist that I think deserves more recognition. Super fun concert.

I’ve also been listening to more of Keith Whitley, Conway Twitty, and will probably add some Loretta Lynn to my playlist in the next few days (RIP).

2022 Spring Music Recap

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Thu, 23 Jun 2022 00:00:00 +0530

YouTube has started doing seasonal music stats so you get a lot more throughout the year.

Spring seems totally off for me. My most listened to artist SHOULD be Zach Bryan. Because I listened to his new album for at least an hour or 2 a day for about a week. I have 2 theories on why it seems off: They stopped pulling information before Zach’s album came out, and they don’t count downloaded songs in the listens. It could be both, but I think the second explanation is definitely the most plausible and would make the most sense. I didn’t listen to it via radios/the non downloaded versions much/at all.

Anyway, here are some of my stats:

Top Artist: Hank Williams, Jr.

I use to not like Hank Jr. I had only heard “Country Boys Can Survive”, and wasn’t the biggest fan of it, so I just kinda wrote him off totally. But he is actually a really really good musician, and I really like a lot of his other songs. So I got on a Bocephus kick for about a month.

After watching interviews and stuff, I don’t think we’d get along hanging out much (apart from the age difference). He’s really vocal about politics where I’m not, and he used to be a pretty big party guy which I’m not. But I’ll listen to his music all day.

Top Spring Songs:

Stars In The Sky - Kid Cudi
Weatherman - Hank Williams, Jr.
You Should’ve Seen The Other Guy - Nathaniel Rateliff
Do it, Try it - M83
O.D.’d in Denver - Hank Williams, Jr.

Stars In The Sky is a decent song, I’m really surprised it was #1 on my list, I haven’t even seen the sonic movies. I think O.D.’d in Denver should have been higher in the list, because I listened to that song on repeat for like a week.

Do it, Try it was up there because I went to a Letter Kenny live show in Durham and they played it a few times. I guess I listened to the version that wasn’t downloaded more than other songs. It’s good, it gets stuck in my head really easily. Most of the songs on this list do actually.

I love In Memory of Loss by Nathaniel Rateliff, it’s such a good album. I’ll get on a kick every couple weeks and listen to most of the album.

Top Spring Artists

Hank Williams, Jr.
Deer Tick
John Moreland
Dawes
Lucero

There isn’t really anything surprising here, except for the exclusion of Zach Bryan, but that might be for the reasons I mentioned earlier. I’d love to see all of them in concert if I can at some point. Deer Tick is by far my favorite artist on this list, I love everything they put out. I hope they put out another album soon.

Lucero is the one I’m least familiar with, but their self titled album has a ton of great songs. Their singer has a super gritty voice.

Top Spring Genres

Country Music - 47%
Independent Music - 27%
Hip Hop - 8%

I like to thing I listen to a wide arrangement of music, but apparently the numbers say otherwise. But, nothing surprising here to be honest.

There are some neat stats here, I feel like the way I use YouTube Music might be skewing my results a little bit. I might have to do some experimenting in the next few seasons to see if I can narrow down how they generate their stats. If the summer one doesn’t include Zach Bryan, I’ll know they don’t count downloaded plays. If it does include him, I’ll know they stopped gathering data before spring actually ended.

Zach Bryan American Heartbreak Review

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Thu, 26 May 2022 00:00:00 -0400

Last Friday (May 20th, 2022) Zach Bryan released his album “American Heartbreak” to the world. I’ve had it as a todo on my reviews page for a while now.

The review is done, you can find it here:

Review

The record is a little long, but I would suggest listening to it for yourself as well (preferably before you read any review).

Reviews Section

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 00:00:00 -0400

I’ve decided to add a “reviews” section to my website, for general overviews over things I like and want to talk about.

The first thing I’ve decided to review is the live action Cowboy Bebop series. So go feel free to read it.

I’m not going to link it in this post because I’m thinking of moving some stuff around, and I don’t want to have too many broken links in my RSS feed. It’s just on the home page.

2021 Music List

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Wed, 22 Dec 2021 00:00:00 -0400

Last year around this time I posted a couple of the songs that made it into my playlist for youtube music’s-spotify wrapped clone playlist. I said I would do it again if they did. Which they do technically have the playlist for some users… but mine hasn’t been populated yet. I am able to go to the page where it should be, but nothing is there besides a message saying “Nothing to see here”. I’m not sure if this is me being impatient, or if I’m just not going to get one this year. I believe I had watch history turned off on youtube for a while, so that may have had something to do with it according to other users.

Oh well, I know pretty well what I listened to and they don’t give the same sort of statistics that Spotify does anyway, so I’m just going to give you 20 songs/albums that I like and listened to a lot this year. This isn’t really in a particular order, but the ones that come first on the list are the ones that I think of first, so take from that what you will. These also aren’t albums/songs that came out this year, just the ones I listened to a bunch.

Live at the Austin Outhouse - Blaze Foley. Overall a REALLY good album. Can’t recommend it enough.
And It’s Still Alright - Nathaniel Rateliff. I haven’t listened to the album in its entirety, but the song that shares the name is outstanding, very sad and dramatic (in a good way). I think he wrote it after his friend passed away.
Broken Window Serenade - Whiskey Meyers. One of my mom’s favorites. I can sorta play this on guitar too. Follows a guy who likes a girl who has an amphetamine addiction.
Sellout - Koe Wetzel. “Outcast”, “Drunk Driving” and “SideChick” are some of my favorites.
It Gets The Worst At Night - Lucero. You can kind of see I like sad music, this one reminds me of early summer a lot.
In Memory Of Loss (Deluxe Edition) - Nathaniel Rateliff. I’ve been listening to this one a lot recently, I’ve listened to most of it a few times. “Once In A Great While”, “Shroud” and “You Should’ve Seen The Other Guy” are my 3 favorites.
Quiet, Heavy Dreams - Zach Bryan. This is a really good short EP for anyone wanting to get into Zach Bryan. Favorite song is probably “Traveling man”.
Gribblecore - Jeff Squires. I think this was only released a few weeks ago, but this is the funniest thing I’ve heard. Super easy listening, especially if you love King Of the Hill.
Broken Hearts & Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine, Vol. 2 - Various Artists. I don’t think I’ve listened to the first volume all the way through, but I like John Prine’s originals better anyway (except for Unwed Fathers, Deer Tick’s version is my favorite song ever). This was really good, definitely a good tribute. Favorite song is probably Tyler Childer’s cover of “Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink After You” and Sturgill Simpson’s “Paradise”.
I Don’t Mind - Sturgill Simpson. Another sad one, but so good. Sturgill is pretty varied in the kind of music he makes, really good artist. I had already liked one of his songs, but Post Malone covered “You Can Have The Crown” and I did a deep dive on him.
Die Midwestern - Arlo McKinley. I’m not sure if this is something I actually listened to totally in 2021, but I come back to it a lot so I’m going to count it. “She’s always around” is one of the most “old-country” sounding songs that I have heard in a while. “Bag of Pills” is also fantastic.
Elisabeth - Zach Bryan. Both this and DeAnn have some real bangers on them. This one has my favorite Zach Bryan song though, which is “Messed up Kid”. I’ve been listening to DeAnn a little bit more recently though, I think my favorite from that album is “Godspeed”.
Weymouth - Fade Away. I’m a little biased on this one because I work with the drummer, but this a really good song from this year. Definitely a band to keep an eye out for.
Acolyte - Slaughter Beach, Dog. I only found this one about a week ago, but I’ve listened to it around 30 times. Sorta slow in lyrics, but fast in music, it’s weird. I really enjoy it.
Dublin Blues - Guy Clark. This guy is really underrated. This song is super fantastic. He unfortunately passed away in 2016.
Somewhere Along The Way - Dawes. I originally found Dawes on accident, not realizing the lead singer was one of the guys from Middle Brother, but I’m so glad I did. This one is sorta sad, but catchy and I’ll probably have it in my head the rest of the night too.
Pitchin’ Fits - Drayton Farley. I found this guy on TikTok originally I think. “Stoic Faces” is a good one off the same album, but it doesn’t have the punch this one does.
Mercury in Retrograde - Sturgill Simpson. If some of his other stuff didn’t prove how out there he is, and how versatile too, this one probably will. Super catchy.
Drunk Again - William Clark Green. This is a fun one to sing in the car at max volume.
Hotel in Minsk - jonatan leandoer96. One of the most ethereal feeling songs in my collection, I listened to this probably 30 times on repeat for about a week.

If I get my playlist back from youtube, I’ll come back and do another post about it to update it. If not, then I’ll just do something similar to this next year. I’ll be doing a recap on my resolutions from this year in the next few days too, so keep an eye out for that.

2020 Music List

jackson@jacksontaylor.xyz (Jackson Taylor) — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 00:00:00 -0400

Up until this year, I had been using Google Play for all of my music. I had to switch because of the platform going away, so my family switched to YouTube Music maybe in the summertime, I can’t remember. Something that’s cool about this platform is they do the “Most listened to artists” generated playlist. I really love music, and I’ll always want to talk about what I’m listening to. Here are the top 20 songs from this list (99 in total).

Come Join the Murder - The White Buffalo
Afterthought - Joji
Sweet Music Man - Waylon Jennings
Seven Spanish Angels - Willie Nelson & Ray Charles
Harlem River Blues - Justin Townes Earle
Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain - Willie Nelson
Cherry Red Wine - Max Gomez
The End is Not in Sight - The Amazing Rhythm Aces
Blue Umbrella - John Prine
Mr. Hollywood - Joji
Mennonite Girl - John Gorka
Patient is the Night - The Blasting Company
Crazy As a Loon - John Prine
Nutshell - Alice in Chains
Break My Heart Sweetly - John Moreland
Late Night - Shakewell
Today I Started Loving You Again - Merle Haggard & The Strangers
Speed of the Sound of Loneliness - John Prine
Black Eyes Blue - Corey Taylor
Lemonade - Gucci Mane

I’m assuming that these are songs that I listened to online, and not my downloads. Deer Tick (my favorite band) isn’t in here until maybe 30-40, and I listen to them most every day. This was pretty cool to see though, if I keep this site up for a few years, and I keep YouTube Music, I’ll keep doing this.