Hayseed Dixie – A Hillbilly Tribute To AC/DC / Mark Kozelek What’s Next To The Moon

Back not front when the ’80s were like dish soap dawning, Claire O. jammed like huckleberries to the dead-bang head-bang, her poodle-doodle-‘do shakin’ like Stevens, and nobody put the rooty-tooty in her booty like Angus forever Young in his short pants. Vile, puerile, and like a youthful river juvenile, AC/DC nonetheless that is to say somethemore arose by any other name far-de-har-har above other bands of a Gothic font wont because and effect they built their bombast to last.

So who do dare to re-do the hoo-doo? Armed with mandolin, banjo and fiddle, and chinned with fake beards, goof troupe Hayseed Dixie tackles like a linebacker hogging the bong the big hits, prestidigitating lickety-pick through the songs to wicked which you know (oh yes you indeedy-don’t-deny-it do…NPR, The Food Channel and Smithsonian Folkways notwithstanding) the words.

Mark Kozelek takes an on-the-other-hand stand, fingerpicking and choosing like an haute butcher obscure cuts, getting B-sidetracked while his guitar gently creeps. Only-lonely the most cold-cranking Sears automotive DC AC/DC high camp followers will recognize like child stars of the ’80s these long-lost and rehabbed compositions, but unlike Lief Garrett, Claire loves like doves these songs the second time around. “Bad Boy Boogie” is a bleary treat, “Up To My Neck In You” is regretful and introspectful, and in Kozelek’s reversion of “Walk All Over You”, misogyny has never so Gentle Ben. There is only one like a cheap chunk of coal clinker — despite a boatload of emote and nummy strummy, the chorus of “Love At First Feel” cannot like an outdated Barnes & Noble coupon be redeemed for cozy poesy. All-in-all-for-one-and-all-but-one, after being like cow chow fed through the four-chambered-stomach of Kozelek’s ruminant vibe, AC/DC’s music for mullets emerges as music for mulling.

Claire is not so certain about the Hayseed Dixie AC/DC CD. Claire is snaily-slow to scream at the beams in other’s gleams, and will herhimself strap on a beard now and then again, but when it comes to AC/DC, it’s tough to out-hoke the original blokes. “Highway To Hell” as dobro-a-go-go is a giggly good start, and the last fast track, “Big Balls”, is a snort-de-force that tripped Claire’s snigger-trigger several times (a Beavis & Butthead reference; “balls” pronounced like “bowels”), but inbetween, all the pickin’ and goofin’ comes Daisy razor close to wasping a corn pone drone.

Claire O. is hardly aloofy about goofy, and Lord and the mailman know she is a three-speed oscillating fan of naughty, and Hayseed Dixie delivers both — but in the end is near, they have produced a Dr. Demento memento, while Mark Kozelek has produced a sweet bastard child.