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Den: That's a good name for a band...
Bad News by Bad News © 2004 Parlophone Records Ltd.
Crusty Basco By Andrew Burns Origin: We are big fans of Tabasco in my house and there is always a bottle of it floating around the kitchen. As a particular container ages, if you are not vigilant, a residue may form around the neck of the bottle close to the lid. Crusty ‘basco may not be pleasant, but it is a good name for a band… Chris Collins and Lyle Tate were both jobbing session musicians in Nashville in the early nineties. They first met when they worked as backing musicians on the recording of Cape and Hogan’s 1992 comeback album “Brothers in Harm”. They began writing together almost immediately and this flurry of creativity led ultimately to the forming, along with fellow Nashville session men Louis Flores and Mikey Canning, of Crusty Basco. Crusty Basco’s first album, “Window to the Void” was released in 1993 with minimal promotion, the record company apparently unsure what to do with it. Window to the Void was Alt Country. Lyrically it was bleak, socially sensitive and politically aware, but it was devoid of the cliche or the synthetic sweetness that the band associated with the Country mainstream at the time. And while there was a definite Nashville lick to the playing, there was no mistaking the Rock influence here. The album burned slowly, but burn it did and it became a hit across America, breaking out of the Country Music silo to be appreciated across the music loving spectrum. Such was the development of interest in Crusty Basco that it was 1996 before the time was right to release “Handle on the Vortex”, their second album, though it had been in the can for nearly two years by then. Handle on the Vortex got the promotion it deserved and was a massive hit immediately on it’s release. If anything Vortex was even less Country than the previous outing, Lyle Tate in particular credited with incorporating elements he picked up from his love of Britpop at the time. But this did not hinder the sales and the album went double platinum in the US. The band’s third and (so far) last album appeared in 1998. “Running Deep” is a much more Country sounding album than either of the previous two and while that was appreciated among Crusty Basco’s core fanbase, it had much less crossover appeal and sold less well. While the band has never officially broken up, Collins (in Loose Ridge Tile) and Tate and Canning (Smokey Eye Squad) have found success in other bands. But Collins and Tate do continue to write together from time to time and performed some Crusty Basco hits together at a benefit concert in Nashville a couple of years ago, so here’s hoping we see a reunion at some point.
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AuthorAndrew Burns really should know better and has so many more important things to be doing than writing this drivel. Please offer him no encouragement either via social media or through the contact page Archives
September 2017
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