The+Mules | tl

1 - Mule was an American punk blues band from Michigan, active in the early 1990s. Formed from the ashes of Wig and Laughing Hyenas, their music incorporated elements of hardcore punk, blues-rock, and alternative country. Mule formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1991, anchored by former Wig member P.W. Long. The band's other members, Kevin Munro and Jim Kimball, had been members of the Laughing Hyenas. This lineup recorded the band's self-titled debut, which produced by Steve Albini and released on Chicago record label Quarterstick Records it self a division of indie super label Touch and Go. Kimball left...

What the hell is a Wrinkle Neck Mule? A sophomoric phallic reference? Too easy. A pack animal used in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico to transport opium to America in the early 1900s? History channel worthy, but wrong. A band of five (or four, depending on the wind) from Richmond, Virginia carrying indie-rockish country music about the land? Eureka. Daily double. Born somewhere on I-64 between Charlottesville and Richmond, Virginia in late 1999, the Wrinkle Neck Mules blend guitars, banjos, mandolins, pedal steel guitars, organs, kitchen sinks, drums and bass together with bluegrass-inspired harmony vocals to distill what The...

British-born Muleskinner Jones is as much influenced by the experimental rock of The Fall, The Residents, Captain Beefheart and The Butthole Surfers as he is by traditional Country acts such as Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Doc Boggs and the Harry Smith Anthologies. People get killed in these songs. Lots of them. And those that don't tend to get drunk and fall over. This off-the-wall, visceral avant-country tends to divide critical opinion. You'll have to make up your own mind. "With his blend of country twang, lolloping boogie and Beefheartian astringency Muleskinner Jones may be the British Johnny Dowd." [The Independent]...