Bison Archives - County Tracks

The Best Vermont Songs of Summer 2020

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Sep 012020

We’re back! After a summer away on paternity leave (can a blog take paternity leave? well, we did), County Tracks returns with a supersized roundup of everything that went on while we were away.

This is, as always, “we” in the proverbial sense. It’s really just me, Ray Padgett. And I have my second book out this week! It’s about music, of course. Specifically the history of tribute albums, as told through the fascinating story of one in particular (1991’s I’m Your Fan: The Songs of Leonard Cohen – which, even if you don’t realize it, is the reason you know the song “Hallelujah”). It’s in the great 33 1/3 series of small books on specific albums. Hope you’ll check it out! Preorder links and more info over here.

Now, onto the music…

Abby Sherman Band – The Road

<a href="http://abbyshermanband.bandcamp.com/track/the-road">The Road by Abby Sherman Band</a>
“The Road” is the first song on Bandcamp that Vermont singer-songwriter Abby Sherman has billed as being by the “Abby Sherman Band.” A minuscule rebranding, but one that feels significant. Whereas her best song last year was a stripped-down dirge, “The Road” features a muscular alt-country backing group giving her melody some heft. Special props to whoever played the country-Mark-Knopfler guitar solo. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Songs of 2018

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Dec 182018

I tried to discern some overarching theme with this year’s Best Songs list. One has to write something in these intros, after all. I never came up with one (other than that the songs are all, you know, good). But maybe that diversity itself offers a narrative thread.

The only thing many outsiders seem to associate with Vermont music is jam bands. Mostly one jam band, really. Now, I’m sure learning that Vermont has other genres wouldn’t surprise any outsider. But learning that the music being created in those genres is equally vibrant – and equally supported by the local music scene – might.

The Best New Songs of June 2018

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Jul 022018

See previous monthly Best-Of lists here.

The Big Sip – Two Hips / One Night

<a href="http://thebigsip.bandcamp.com/album/sip-responsibly">Sip Responsibly by The Big Sip</a>
When an album features the credit “Tenor Sax (Track 5),” you know I’m starting with Track 5. And the sax doesn’t disappoint when it finally arrives on this arty-jam-funk journey, but there is so much going on beforehand you forget it’s coming. Crazy keyboard sound effects, off-kilter Phish rhythms, and some insistent melodies that push through the chaos. It’s off the band’s debut EP Sip Responsibly. Continue reading »

The Best New Songs of May 2018

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May 312018

See previous monthly Best-Of lists here.

Addy Sechler – Make Home to Me

<a href="http://addysechler.bandcamp.com/album/beauty-road">Beauty Road by Addy Sechler</a>
One of the best albums of 2017 was Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked at Me. It was also one of the toughest to actually listen to, being a songwriter frankly grappling with his wife’s sudden death. When you want that same quiet, hushed vibe, but don’t have the emotional bandwidth to sink into that weighty subject matter, Addy Sechler’s new album will suit just fine. Continue reading »

The Best Post-Punk Revivalists Since Interpol Go Out on Top

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May 142018

The Vermont trio Bison’s first release Get Out was my favorite EP of last year. Now they’re back with their second. That’s the good news. The bad: It’s also their last. Two of the three band members are moving away, and Bison will soon be no more. Judging from the first single “Arkansas,” at least they’re going out on top. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont Songs of 2017

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Dec 152017

Holy moly, Vermont artists released a lot of songs this year. I’m just talking sheer quantity: a lot of songs.

This may seem a blindingly obvious observation, but here’s why it struck me. When this site launched this past January, we posted Best Songs and Best Albums of 2016 lists to kick things off. The twenty selections on each were just things I’d come across in the preceding twelve months. This year, though, I made a more concerted effort to be thorough. All year I was trolling Bandcamp and Soundcloud and YouTube and Facebook, which drove the point home for me. I already knew Vermont musicians were prolific, but dear god. One songwriter alone released 36 double-sided singles!

The point being, narrowing this list down to twenty songs was brutal. That’s a testament to the bounty of great music coming out of Vermont. Some of my selections come from bands known to any Vermont music fans; others are by musicians not really plugged into “the scene,” off on their own somewhere releasing amazing stuff. There’s no overarching theme, and in a different week, this list would probably change. But these are my favorite local songs of the year – today at least. Continue reading »

The Best Vermont EPs of 2017

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Dec 122017

What is an EP?

I don’t mean that as a philosophical question, but a practical one.

Back in the vinyl era, the EP had a clear reason for existing as a stand-alone format from the album. If you had enough songs to fill a 12-inch, 33RPM record, you made an album. If not, you put what you had on a 10-inch, 45RPM record and called it an EP. They looked different; they felt different; they cost different amounts.

In the digital era, free of physical limitations, the distinction has blurred. An artist’s latest collection of music can be two songs or two hundred. The idea that a 60-minute collection of music constitutes an “album” and a 15-minute one constitutes an “EP” is purely artificial.

Yet the EP hangs on, because musicians like the format. Nowhere more so than in Vermont, where the EP offers new bands a way to test the waters and experienced bands a way to toss out a few songs between “proper” albums. In a musical climate where local musicians rotate constantly around new bands and monikers, the EP offers a low-stakes way to try out a new sound or collaboration.

As a result, this list is no ugly stepchild to the Best Albums list we’ve got coming next week. There may be no more practical reason to keep the EP designation, but these ten EPs justify their own reasons for existing. Continue reading »

Bernie Sanders Data Breach Inspires Post-Punk Song

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Jun 272017

It feel like a million years ago now, but try if you can to remember back to the halcyon days of the 2015 Democratic primary. At one point, due to a DNC security glitch, a Bernie Sanders campaign staffer downloaded some of the Hillary Clinton campaign’s proprietary data. This scandal seems quaint compared to everything that happened after, but at the time this was a big deal.

For a week or so, that is. Then the news cycle moved on. But some people didn’t get to move on with it.

Singer-songwriter Charlie Hill was not one of those people. But at the time, he was roommates with a Bernie campaign staffer. And while most of America was indulging in schadenfreude, he saw how the episode impacted real people on the inside. With the media and Clinton’s people out for blood, the staffer’s entire team got summarily fired by the Sanders campaign. Many of them were blameless, but heads had to roll.

The incident inspired Hill’s band Bison’s rocking new post-punk song “Everything You Say and Do.” Lines like “All a sudden they’re all laid off, everything becomes undone” and “Everything you say and do has got to be locked down” directly come out of this political drama. Continue reading »