Search - Whiskey Biscuit :: Zig Zag

Rockin' alt country!

05/16/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Whiskey Biscuit reminds me of a cross between Louisiana's Bluerunners, Austin's Gourds and the Rolling Stones (think "Dead Flowers" from "Sticky Fingers"). There's a very nice mesh of music going on here, and I can't stop listening to it. This isn't your canned, big-record-company-approved alt country like Wilco. It's much better than that. This is the only Whiskey Biscuit CD I could find available in the United States (in May 2004). Apparently, it's the second U.S. release for the band, which hails from L.A. but sounds more like it's from Louisiana. "Zig Zag" was released on Whiskey Biscuit's homemade Shipwrecords label in 2001. In 2003, Loose records in the United Kingdom released a CD of the band titled simply "Whiskey Biscuit," which contains "Santa Ana River Delta Blues" (their closest thing to a hit), three songs that are on "Zig Zag" and several songs I haven't heard, but Uncut gave it five stars, so it's probably great. The three best songs on "Zig Zag" are not included on the Loose release, and "Zig Zag" is worth buying just for those three songs (in case you already have the Loose record).
Here's what Bryan Thomas said about "Zig Zag" in "All Music Guide": "Wiskey Biscuit has been around for over a decade, though it's possible that outside their hometown of L.A., this coyote rock septet still languishes in somewhat relative obscurity. They've had a few moments when the spotlight was trained on them for a second before moving on: touring across the U.S. in 2000 after fervent Wiskey Biscuit fan and close friend, Elliott Smith, hand-picked them to open his shows on a short national tour. They've been mentioned in the pages of Rolling Stone and way back in 1993 they were even signed to a Geffen Records contract (by John Kalodner). Unfortunately, after recording an album's worth of songs at Willie Nelson's studio outside Austin, TX (with the Butthole Surfers' Paul Leary behind the boards), they were dropped from the label after A&R guru Kalodner fled Geffen for Sony. Through it all, Wiskey Biscuit has keep their heads up while they continued to make great music, all the while building a solid following across the West Coast. ... Zig Zag is a more-than-noticeable improvement, in fact, over the ramshackle recording of many of their previous releases. Lead vocalist Jason Mason's soulful hootenanny-style vocals are still the focus, front and center, as the band continues to chart their own path through Cosmic American tundra, combining elements of nearly every American genre and subgenre you can imagine.""