The Bottle Rockets
is an American rock band formed in 1992, currently based in Saint Louis, Missouri. The founding members were Brian Henneman (guitar, vocals), Mark Ortmann [1] (drums), Tom Parr (1992-2002, guitar, vocals) and Tom Ray [2] (1992-1997, bass guitar). Current members are Henneman, Ortmann, John Horton (joined 2003, guitar) and Keith Voegele [3] (joined 2005, bass, vocals). Most members of the group have contributed compositions to their catalog of original songs, as have Robert Parr (Tom's brother) and schoolteacher Scott Taylor (who writes lyrics for some of Henneman's tunes).
As noted in the New York Times
by William Hogeland, the Bottle Rockets' songwriting has been likened to Woody Guthrie's folk style in spirit, smarts, and satire. Henneman's, Ortmann's, and Taylor's lyrics succinctly and endearingly encapsulate the common experiences of the everyman, and are set to stirring, rousing, searing rock 'n' roll. [4] [5]
Considered to be the godfathers of the '90s alt-country/roots rock revival along with peers Uncle Tupelo, the Bottle Rockets are seasoned contemporary storytellers from Middle America. [6] [7] Their songs "Welfare Music", "Kerosene", "Zoysia", "Baggage Claim", "Blind", "Wave That Flag", "Align Yourself", "Middle Man", "Rich Man in the Graveyard", and "The Kid Next Door" are examples of social commentary in the Bottle Rockets' original hybrid Woody Guthrie meets Neil Young meets The Replacements American roots music sound. [8]
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THE BOTTLE ROCKETS TICKETS
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History
The 1990s
The Bottle Rockets released their self-titled first album in 1993.
[9] The Brooklyn Side
followed on East Side Digital, in 1994, to resounding critical acclaim.
In 1995, the Bottle Rockets then signed with
Atlantic Records, which re-released
The Brooklyn Side
. The single "Radar Gun" was a hit on rock radio—reaching #27 on ''Billboard
s rock chart—and the band toured extensively to support the album. The band appeared on the television show Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing one of their original songs as well as being featured in a comedic skit. The relationship with Atlantic Records turned out to be difficult. [10] Most of the original staff who promoted
The Brooklyn Side
had been laid off or fired from Atlantic. The release of the Bottle Rockets' next record,
24 Hours A Day'', was delayed until late 1997. The band parted ways with Atlantic in 1998.
The Bottle Rockets are featured in the
PBS documentary The Mississippi River Of Song: The Grassroots of American Music.
[11] In the series, which is narrated by
Ani DiFranco, Brian Henneman says that he and the band are “reporters from the heartland” writing stories about their friends.
[12] [13] Their music combines singer-songwriter poignancy with authenticity, commentary and wit. The Bottle Rockets performed live at the
Smithsonian Institution in
Washington, DC at the premiere for the film, and also appear on the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings soundtrack.
[14]
Bottle Rockets then signed with Doolittle records, which later became
New West Records. Doolittle released an
EP of
outtakes from
24 Hours A Day
called
Leftovers
in 1998. About this time, Tom Ray was replaced on bass by
Robert Kearns. The Bottle Rockets' fourth full length record,
Brand New Year
, was released on Doolittle in 1999. "Power hooks and muscular guitar fights that would make Skynyrd proud" and "'70s power rock with a dirty edge—sort of
ZZ Top meets
Lynyrd Skynyrd meets
Bad Company" is the calling card of
Brand New Year
.
[15]
2000-2005
The band again had problems with their record label, and did not record anything else until
Songs of Sahm
, a collection of songs by
Doug Sahm, which came out on
Chicago label in early 2002.
[16] Shortly after finishing this record, Parr left the band. Bottle Rockets toured as a three-piece for a while, and recorded their fifth full-length record
Blue Sky
(which was released in 2003 on the Sanctuary label), before adding multi-instrumentalist John Horton to the band.
Kearns amicably split with the band in the spring of 2005. After a brief search the Bottle Rockets named Keith Voegele as their new bassist.
Voegele is from Saint Louis and has played in bands around the city including the Phonocaptors.
After the Bottle Rockets' promising eponymous debut, having a radio hit ("Radar Gun") on their second album, extensive touring, and resounding critical acclaim,
[17] the band endured a decade of subsequent hard luck (including having their career held hostage to a staggering series of record companies they'd had contracts with that folded and/or floundered, a UPS strike holding up distribution of one of their new records, band personnel changes, and family emergencies during prominent tours).
[18] [19] [20] Concurrent with the band's business difficulties,
grunge and
alternative rock meteorically came to prominence and dominated popular culture, becoming the corporate mainstream rather than the alternative. As a result, the music industry effectively abandoned traditional rock artists who were building a legacy of work, in favor of marketing trendy carbon-copy quick-commercial-turnaround acts.
[21] [22] The path Henneman and the Bottle Rockets had been on seemed to disappear.
Despite those struggles, in 2005 the Bottle Rockets stabilized from the upheavals with their good nature and trailblazing edge intact. Founders Brian Henneman and Mark Ortmann got the band back on course, along with the newest additions John Horton and Keith Voegele, the current line-up of band members. The band also re-hired their manager from the early days, Bob Andrews.
[23]
2006-2007
The Bottle Rockets' first live album
Live in Heilbronn Germany
was released in February 2006. The double-disc set was recorded on July 17 2005 at the Burgerhaus, Heilbronn-Bockingen, Germany with the band's current roster. It was released in Europe on CD and vinyl by Blue Rose Records.
Bloodshot Records released the band's next album,
Zoysia
, recorded in Ardent Studios in
Memphis with producer
Jeff Powell, in June 2006.
Zoysia (zoy-zhuh), a metaphor for tolerance and centered values and common ground, is a hardy grass, plentiful in Festus/Crystal City and Saint Louis, Missouri, where these hardworking musicians grew up. After years of misleading portrayals of the band's music as "hillbilly",
[24] [25] the band's catalog proves otherwise with themes of maturity, generosity of spirit, neighborliness, insightful self-reflection, personal roots and modern society, individualism, pride of place, slow-mending hearts, and post-9/11 reality through the filter of a couple’s romance.
[26] After more than their share of hard knocks,
the Bottle Rockets continued with their trailblazing edge intact with
Zoysia
:
It would be a mistake to claim that Missouri's answer to Neil Young's Crazy Horse has gone soft but their first release in more than three years shows greater range and reflection than is typical for the rock-solid quartet. The opening "Better Than Broken", the brooding "Happy Anniversary", and the acoustic wistful "Where I Come From" all evoke the aftermath of romantic upheaval.... "Middle Man" could be the band's signature tune defining a sensibility that is Middle American in more than geography. The sage wisdom of frontman Brian Henneman's "Blind" and the twang of "Feeling Down" show the band's countrier side while "I Quit" has the groove of retro soul. Yet the guitar finale of the seven-minute album-closing title song ["Zoysia"] finds the Bottle Rockets as explosive as ever. —Don McLeese
Zoysia
received rave reviews worldwide including a spot on novelist/audiophile
Stephen King's Best Records of 2006 list in
Entertainment Weekly
magazine.
[27]
2008: 15th Anniversary Year
The band celebrated its 15th anniversary throughout 2008.
Instead of extensive touring like in previous years, the band played only 15 shows in select cities during the entire year.
The Bottle Rockets' reputation as the underdog spokesmen translated into a collaboration with fans in 2008.
[28] [29] Fans of the Bottle Rockets had a voice in the band’s 15th Anniversary Tour, having been invited to design set lists for the 2008 tour from the Bottle Rockets’ catalog plus one cover song suggestion. The band hand-picked a fan’s set list for each of the special anniversary shows and entered the set list winners in a year-long contest to win one of 2 grand prizes, a $1500.00 custom Golden Rocket guitar by
Creston Electric Instruments or the “Bottle Rockets for life” prize package.
[30]
The results of the first such collaboration were detailed by Roy Kasten and Barry Gilbert in their reviews of the performance, in the Riverfront Times and the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, respectively.
[31] [32]
While other artists have covered Bottle Rockets’ songs, including
John Hiatt, (Hiatt recorded “Welfare Music” for
Don Imus’
Ranch Record
), Peter Blackstock of
No Depression
implores:
“...somebody, SOMEBODY
record [the Bottle Rockets’ song] “Kerosene” on your next album. Big band, little band, country band, rock band,...punk band,...somebody just get smart and give this song the respect, and legs, it deserves." [33] [34]
In July 2008, The Bottle Rockets teamed up again with producer Eric Ambel (
Brooklyn Side
,
24 Hours A Day
,
Leftovers
,
Brand New Year
) at his Cowboy Technical Services Recording Studio in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York for their new album,
Lean Forward
, that will be released by Bloodshot Records in 2009.
[35]
2009
On May 2, The Bottle Rockets played a special concert at the High Dive in
Champaign, IL that was recorded for an upcoming live
DVD release.
[36] The set list included "Hard Times," "Done It All," "Shame On Me," "Give Me Room," "The Way It Used to Be" and "The Long Way" from the forthcoming
Lean Forward
album.
[37]
Discography
- Bottle Rockets
, 1992
- The Brooklyn Side
, 1994, re-released 1995
- 24 Hours A Day
, 1997
- Leftovers
, 1998
- Brand New Year
, 1999
- Songs of Sahm
, 2002
- Blue Sky
, 2003
- Live in Heilbronn Germany
, 2006
- Zoysia
, 2006
- Lean Forward
, 2009
Videography
- Bottle Rockets Live in Heilbronn, Germany. Blue Rose
References
- Undertow Music • View topic - Mark Ortmann Appreciation
- Devil in a Woodpile dot com
- Undertow Music • View topic - Keith Voegele Appreciation
- MUSIC; Emulating the Real and Vital Guthrie, Not St. Woody
- The Brooklyn Side : The Bottle Rockets : Review
- Observer, Darryl Smyers, 2006
- Lee (July 13, 2006), [http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2006-07-13/music/the-bottle-rockets/ ''The Bottle Rockets'' , Phoenix New Times.]
- Audio + Video
- EastSide Catalog - Bottle Rockets - Bottle Rockets
- Undertow Music • View topic - The Music Industry
- The Mississippi River Of Song: The Grassroots of American Music
- River of Song: The Artists
- The Mississippi River of Song
- River of Song: The Project
- the racial divide: The Bottle Rockets stare down bad luck (and give Shania Twain her due) by Tracy Rose, MountainXpress, Vol 6, Iss 22, January 12, 2000
- The Bottle Rockets: Bottled Up
- The Brooklyn Side : The Bottle Rockets : Review
- Interviews: The Bottle Rockets
- Bottle Rockets
- Peter (2003) "Hell of a Spell: What Hasn't Killed The Bottle Rockets Has Made Them Stronger" pp.82-95. No Depression #48
- Turn That @#!% Down!
- Great Riffs. Big Bucks. New Hopes?
- Roy (April 29, 2008), [http://www.riverfronttimes.com/2008-04-30/music/15-up-fifteen-things-you-might-not-know-about-local-heroes-the-bottle-rockets-on-the-occasion-of-their-fifteenth-birthday/ Fifteen Things You Might Not Know about The Bottle Rockets, on Their Fifteenth Birthday, Riverfront Times.]
- The Bottle Rockets: Biography
- St. Louis Music - Fifteen things you might not know about the Bottle Rockets, on their fifteenth birthday - page 1
- Newsvine - A Newsvine Interview With Brian Henneman, Singer of The Bottle Rockets
- Stephen King's top music picks for 2006
- Phoenix Music - The Bottle Rockets - page 1
- NoDepression.com
- Instruments - The Bottle Rockets' Golden Rocket - WIN THIS GUITAR! - photos by Evan Dempsey :: Creston Electric Instruments
- St. Louis - A to Z - Show Review: Bottle Rockets at Blueberry Hill's Duck Room, Saturday, May 3
- Bottle Rockets
- ND Columnists: Peter Blackstock
- Kerosene Lyrics - Bottle Rockets
- The Bottle Rockets
- Bottle Rockets to record live DVD at Highdive
- Bottle Rockets High Dive Show