Great Bands I Miss #74: The Backsliders

Raleigh's music scene has never turned out to be the rocket to stardom people keep thinking it's gonna be. Not for a lack of great musicians, like Vanilla Trainwreck or my sickeningly-talented friend Jeff Hart. Not for a lack of folks that have gone out there and done something, like say COC, Ryan Adams and, uhhhh... Clay Aiken. And not for some bands that made some great records that about 12 people ever got to hear.

Case in point. We used to have a band around here called The Backsliders. And, man, they were something else.
Around '96, they were playing out constantly, and I was a music geek, single, bored out of my mind and all too willing to spend another night at The Brewery. What first attracted me to The Backsliders was that they'd evidently had their lives changed by the same Buck Owens records I'd found at a yard sale about two years earlier. Their songwriting impressed me, too. As did the way Steve Howell played that beautiful F-hole Telecaster. Don Rich or Clarence White woulda been proud.

On the strength of their incredible live shows, they developed a big local following, and their Brewery gigs were always packed. And hot. And very, very great. So it made sense when they signed to Mammoth that they'd put out a live EP recorded there. It's a great introduction to the band, and for those of us who were there, a great reminder of how those misspent nights weren't so damn misspent after all.

They followed it with THROWIN' ROCKS AT THE MOON, produced by Pete Anderson. It's a really good record, but after all those live shows, it seemed a bit, well, mannered. They toured for it, and when they returned to The Brewery, they were still great. But somewhere in there, the rot set it. And before long -- in fact, halfway through recording the next record -- they were pretty much done.

Nowdays, when I think of what a show at a club is like, those Backsliders shows come to mind. And you know, a PBR just ain't been as good since.