As dry and gritty as a West Texas sandstorm, Ray Wylie Hubbard's latest release "Snake Farm" is a slice of texified outlaw blues rock best washed down with a cold Lone Star. Some Texas musicians have earned the right to be called legendary and this disc is a perfect example of why Ray Wylie Hubbard is on that list.
This release couldn't come out of L.A. or Nashville, it just doesn't fit into any of their genre labels and Ray's fusion of Texas country, rock, and blues show much of where Rick Rubin must have come up with the "distressed country" direction that he took with Johnny Cash's final releases. Never mind that I am already partial to the artist, having seen him during the "Up Against The Wall, Redneck Mothers" cosmic cowboy days at the Dillo in the 70s, never mind that the album is called "Snake Farm" and has snakes on the cover and you know I am goin' to be partial to that, this is one damn fine disc.
It starts with the title track "Snake Farm" about a guy and his relationship with a gal who works at the snake farm. Though the song is not specific to any particluar snake farm, Ray in fact got the idea and words for the song as he drove past the "infamous"
snake farm in New Braunfels, Texas. Not sure if Ray knows of that particular institution's history as a "bawdy house" in the 60s, masquerading as a snake farm, but I digress. It's a great song that evokes the feelings most people have the first time they encounter one of these roadside attractions. I know I felt that way when we would see the signs for one up in Oklahoma on family vacations. We would always scream "EEEEWWWW" and then "Can we stop and see the snakes PLEASE!!!" Of course we never did. I finally saw a snake farm, the one in New Braunfels, but only after I became a herper and by then the reaction had changed from "EEEWWW" to "WOW."
Songs like "Killowatts," "Heartaches and Grease," and "The Way of The Fallen" are masterful and robust yet raw and unrefined. I absolutely love the song "Rabbit," its got a real "thwack" to it. Songs like these could only be penned by someone who has been to the very edge of the precipice and had a good hard look at what lies beyond.
Best Line: "Young pups ask me, what makes my kind, shameless women and pork rinds..." Ray is a true Texas poet laureate. I liked every song on the disc.