Zoe Muth [and The Lost High Rollers]

Good to know the great Pacific Northwest still appreciates this gem–and she probably has been in Austin a year and a half at least, so the move was not “just” recently. I’ve given the new record a couple of listens myself, and it holds up nicely; perhaps the journalist is right about it being a bit less country/honky-tonk. I do miss the mandolin.

She’s dropped the band tag name The Lost High Rollers from this release; in fact, only one “High Roller” still remains, Zoe’s drummer-spouse Greg Nies (they met when she was In the audience at Seattle’s Tractor Tavern, he working front house sound). I purchased the record inside the finest building in Nashville: third floor is Thirty Tigers headquarters, Lu’s new distribution company. Ground floor is the live music venue The Basement, site of 2000’s “discovery” of Anne McCue by Lu, who immediately invited her out to open. The middle floor? Grimey’s Records, maybe the best such storefront in our nation, also featuring some great in-store mini-sets. Zoe’s first record (not even on a label) was in the “Folk/Americana” section of the store, but there were no others, so I despaired until the clerk steered me to “rock/pop,” where the new one was filed. Whether this says something about her shift to “solo” artist status and/or confirms what the Seattle Times guy said I’m not sure. The former band name was a Townes allusion, but there are other ways of keeping that heritage alive. Zoe knows her roots, and honors them.

There’s only one cover on this record, longtime Austinite Ronnie Lane’s “April Fool,” which was mentioned by the reviewer. Sleeper songs to my mind are “Make Me Change My Mind” and “Taken All You Wanted.” Brad Rice plays a mean guitar throughout, he of Lu/Austin/Waterloo Records/January 2014 one-off fame. Bruce Robison is on the record too. As usual, the great cover art can be credited to yet another Salinger figure, sister Phoebe.

GOT THE PAYPHONE BLUES IN A TOWN I SHOULD HAVE LEFT A LONG TIME AGO
–Zoe Muth