Search - Terry Allen :: Smokin the Dummy / Bloodlines

Music for driving the open road.

06/25/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"My brother-in-law and I recently drove a 24-foot International diesel moving truck cross-country. He brought along Smokin the Dummy, and boy, I just can't imagine a better set of songs to accompany that type of chore. When you hit your 14th hour on the road, and you're bouncing your kidnies into old age, all you can do is laugh. When you're dragging ass out of the sack in some cheap midwestern fleabag, drinking bad coffee and holding a stale donut, all you can do is laugh. After 800 miles of flat prarie interstate and you're blind to everything but the imagined taste of a cold beer, all you can do is laugh. That's what this album did for us. And set to this album, our trip was truly a case of life imitating art. It was life on the road, dirty, ugly, smelly, funny. And Terry Allen put it all in just the right context for us to enjoy the heck out of every minute."

Alt.country before there was alt.country

m_noland | Washington, DC United States | 03/11/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"There is something wonderfully weird about the bent observations of the lyrics delivered in a West Texas twang to the accompaniment of a simple 4/4 beat, parlor piano, and pedal steel. One can see why Terry Allen is David Byrne's favorite Texan. Although never reaching the oddball grandeur of Allen's true masterpiece, "Lubbock (On Everything)," this two-fer nevertheless has its moments, including the delightful "Gimme a Ride to Heaven, Boy," still a staple of Flatlander live shows.There are surely Waylon Jennings tribute albums in the works; maybe Robbie Fulks or some other country insurgent ought to cover "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way?" as "Are You Sure Terry Allen Did It This Way?" - he's the grandfather of them all."