From the opening bars of the title song you know exactly what’s on offer here. The following 15 songs simply confirm that opinion. The collective musicians of Fingerpistol play with a love and largesse for the traditionally Texas focused country music that they play.
The eight players involved are skilled players who make singer Dan Hardick’s songs come alive. He has written all the material on the album that range from the humorous - Country Music Made A Drinker Out Of Me, Truck Nutz and the title track. To songs that deal with typical mismatched relationships - Desperate Woman, Man About Town and Take Back This Heartache. But amid the tongue in cheek tactics there are some socially aware aspirations like in the closing track Queer For The Rodeo. A song that’s has a punch line of “it ain’t nothing but my own damn business how I orientate”. It’s a song that ask us not to make judgements. Other songs deal with that perennial staple of the genre - drink. Bottle Of Whiskey is about sharing some good times with that particular beverage and praises it in its many forms. Another title is Songs About Hank Williams which considers the many songs that takes Ol’ Hank as their topic and decides that if he were that legendary person then “I’d write songs about me too”. It ends with the line that he feels that he’s pretty sure that what’s Williams did! Cherokee Shuffle is the shortest track here, a fiddle interlude of some 28 seconds. The rest of the songs though average above the three minute mark over the generous 16 song included.
Hardick’s partner on the vocal front is Suzee Brooks, she is an equally adept singer alongside delivering these songs with personality and some passion. Taking the lead vocal on a number of songs or duetting with Hardick on others. Their ‘life’s a bitch’ duet Never will raise a smile on many a face. Of the musicians who form an important part of Fingerpistol perhaps the most recognisable name of the players involved is pedal steel player Neill Flanz who played with Gram Parsons’ Fallen Angels band.
Musically there are bits of Bakersfield, dance floor shuffles and honky tonk toe-tappers among the hardcore country sounds, however they manage to bring some freshness to these hard worn themes. If you were ever a fan of the likes of the Cornell Hurd Band then you will have an idea what to expect. The mix of humour, heart and hot playing is infectious and enjoyable. It is what it is and doesn’t try to be something it’s not and is all the better for it. Enjoy, but be careful where you put your feet.