Resentments














Resentments
No Video Available
The Resentments were a originally a rather loose bunch of musicians that got together at the Saxon Pub on Sunday nights to swap songs, stories and lies much to the entertainment of all that discovered them. Around the constant duo of Stephen Bruton and Jon Dee Graham many Austin musicians performed with the group at one time or another. Mambo replaced original drummer Hal Ketchum. Scrappy replaced part-time guitarist David Holt (Storyville) and Bruce Hughes settled in as the permanent bass player. Although each of their solo careers have prevented the group from touring extensively, they have played a few festivals and performed a few encore performances at the Austin Music Awards, the Getty Museum (Los Angelos) and at McCabes’s in LA for such friends as T-Bone Burnett and Bonnie Raitt. Jon Dee Graham a longtime fixture of the renowned Austin, TX music scene, may be best known for his stint in the acclaimed Eighties roots-rock band the True Believers. Raised on a ranch near the Texas-Mexico border, he picked up the guitar at age 12, years later dropping out of law school at the University of Texas to join the Austin punk band the Skunks. The group went on to open for the likes of the Clash and the Ramones. He emerged in the early Eighties as leader of the new wave units Five Spot and the Lift. He joined the True Believers in 1984, and although the group quickly emerged as a major critical favorite they were dropped by EMI in the wake of their self-titled 1986 debut, disbanding soon after. Although Graham's gifts as a composer blossomed during his stint in the True Believers, he chose not to pursue a solo career in the wake of the band's collapse, instead relocating from Austin to Los Angeles and collaborating with X front man John Doe on his solo debut Meet John Doe. Subsequently working with everyone from Michelle Shocked to Patty Smyth, Graham earned a reputation as a much sought-after sideman and writer. In 1997 he began work on his solo debut Escape from Monster Island which was followed by Summerland in 1999. His latest release, Hooray for the Moon was released in 2002 on the New West Records imprint. Stephen Bruton had amassed a daunting resume long before launching a recorded career as a singer/songwriter. He had served as a sideman/guitarist, songwriter, or producer for such industry notables as Bonnie Raitt, Delbert McClinton, Bob Dylan, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Hal Ketchum (a former Resentment), Christine McVie, T-Bone Burnett, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Patty Loveless, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and Alejandro Escovedo. Bruton grew up in Ft. Worth, TX, the son of a jazz drummer and record-store owner. He got his first big break when Kris Kristofferson tapped him to fill a vacant band slot in the early '70s. After working with an impressive array of artists for over 20 years, Bruton released his first solo album in the early '90s. Later that decade, he signed with New West Records, the home of such Americana talent as Billy Joe Shaver, the Flatlanders, and Delbert McClinton. Bruton's fourth solo CD, Spirit World, was released in early 2002. Scrappy Jud Newcomb is a musician's musician. Starting in Austin as an integral member of Loose Diamonds he is much sought after sideman, working with a huge number of Austin artists like ex-Wild Seed Michael Hall, Calvin Russell, and Toni Price. Newcomb also produced and plays with Beaver Nelson and Ian McLagan (Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart). His guitar playing is stand-alone but his work with the Resentments puts the spotlight on a whisper-like voice and image-inducing songs. Bruce Hughes was born in Houston, Texas. He began playing in bars in the area in his teens. He moved to Hawaii and started playing bass with the band Poi Dog Pondering that eventually moved to Austin. While playing with Poi Dog he began moonlighting with the band the Atlantics, which eventually became Ugly Americans. After a brief stint with Cracker he joined the Ugly Americans fulltime. After putting out two records on Capricorn and then three CDs with the Austin based Scabs, Bruce would eventually play bass and sing in Bob Schneider's Lonelyland project. Bruce has also produced four records and plays in a number of other groups that include Tomatia and his latest funk project Jerkuleez that includes Resentments sidekick Jud Newcomb.. “Mambo” John Treanor - A legendary sideman and drummer, it was not uncommon to see Mambo with his trademark washboard taking the stage with touring acts like the String Cheese Incident and Los Lobos. His legacy includes time spent recording and performing with The Electromagnets, Marcia Ball, Beto and the Fairlanes, Abra Moore, Kris Kristofferson, Eliza Gilkyson and James McMurtry. His passing in 2001 from cancer left a huge hole in the Austin music scene and in the hearts of all that knew him. The Resentment “Sunday Night Line-Up” is his last recording.
Date Venue City State Note
No Tour Dates Available
No News Available
No Blogs Available
No Interviews Available
No Merchandise Available
Average Rating : 4.2              Total Reviews: 5


Resentments  06/09/2005            
Gary
It does'nt get any better than this folks. Each one of these guys is a tour de force on their own. Together they are awesome. If you you like Texas music.....this is the mainline. Stephen Bruton in the lineup should be all you need to see to buy this disk. His new solo CD will stop a Bull at 30 paces!!!!
Resentments  08/28/2002            
My GOD....
Who the Hell are these people and what in the Hell gives them the right to write such a Ridiculously long review!!! You have got to be kidding me w/ this crap!!!
Resentments  08/27/2002            
Santa Monica Mirror
August 14 It’s hard to imagine a livelier live set than The Resentments’ Sunday Night Line-up. Jon Dee Graham (a personal fave), Stephen Bruton, Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Bruce Hughes and the late “Mambo” John Treanor have been in residency at Austin’s Saxon Pub for ages and this is their first album. Bruton (a fine solo artist and superb producer) gets things going like gangbusters with his Dylan-esque and irresistible “That’s Love.” It cracked me up with lines like this: “Ain’t nothing finer/when your gal’s not a dish, she’s a whole set of china.” This been there-sung that song gives that Bonnie Raitt hit “Thing Called Love” a run for its money. When The Resentments are playing, resentment is the last thing you’ll be feeling.
Resentments  08/27/2002            
John Schulien -MSNBC
Right away I know I’m in for trouble if I call the Resentments the best bar band in America. Somebody’s liable to say they aren’t even the best bar band in Texas, which is where they’re from, and how do I know that’s not true? I haven’t heard every bar band in Texas, which automatically cancels any chance I might have to claim I’ve heard every bar band in America. To tell the truth, I don’t go to bars all that much anymore. SO THERE WAS no reason for the Resentments to have popped up on my musical radar screen until I stumbled upon them in Austin a year ago. I was at the Saxon Pub to hear James McMurtry, whose alt-country songwriting bears the mark of a true craftsman and whose face clouds up at the mention that his father, Larry, wrote “Lonesome Dove.” But McMurtry’s prickly stage presence sent me back to doing what I usually do in bars: peel the label off the only bottle of beer I bought all night. The more I peeled, the more I wished the Resentments were still playing. They’d been McMurtry’s warm-up act, doing what they do every Sunday they’re in town, weaving songs by Chuck Berry, Hank Snow and W.C. Handy in among their own compositions and wry commentary on whatever popped into their minds. It was clear these five guys really liked each other, and the musical conversations they were having, and the idea of letting a packed house in on their fun. To me, a stranger in a strange land every time I set foot in a bar these days, they seemed to have hit the bar-band trifecta. ROLL WITH IT. If you don’t want to take my word but you can’t get to Austin to do your own research, maybe you can track down the CD the Resentments just released, “Sunday Night Line-Up.” It was recorded at the Saxon, naturally, and it features the band’s founding fathers — Stephen Bruton on guitar and mandolin, Jon Dee Graham and Scrappy Jud Newcomb on guitar, Bruce Hughes on bass and the late Mambo John Treanor on drums. What their album delivers is, to borrow a phrase from Bruton, “that good Resentments lost-in-the-house-of-gravity feel.” No need to puzzle over the word choice. Just roll with it. Laugh and think about all the other good times you’ve had when a bar band was trying to play louder than the case of empties that just crashed to the floor and the customers who waited until the first note to start yakking. In the more-than-one-brew phase of my life, it seemed like I couldn’t step out the door without hearing Buddy Guy or Koko Taylor or somebody else’s great band turning the Chicago night blue. I’m not sure I’d admit ever having set foot in the Playboy Club in St. Petersburg, Fla., if I hadn’t seen George Thorogood show up and jam with the house band. And I was in New Orleans when Tipitina’s reopened in time for the 1986 Super Bowl and Jessie Hill got up and sang “Ooo Poo Pah Do,” thereby providing all the spiritual connective tissue I needed to be one with the Meters, the Neville Brothers and the sainted Professor Longhair. LIVING WITH INDIGNITIES I began what turned into a 10-year hiatus from bars soon afterward not because I needed to dry out, but because I’d started swimming in uncharted waters professionally and I didn’t want to drown if I could help it. I still knew how a bar band should sound, though. Keith Richards put one together for a live 1991 CD and called it the X-Pensive Winos, which, for my money, ranks right up there with the Resentments when you’re talking about great band names. But the Winos played the Hollywood Palladium, and I’ve always been more intrigued by holes in the wall with shrieking sound systems and backed-up toilets and, as Greg Brown, the amiably gnarly folk singer, says, “don’t even try dancing, your feet would just stick.” Young or old, big-name or not, bar bands learn to live with the indignities. Some — the bad ones, and they are legion — seem to deserve them. But even the bands that are good enough to cash in on their dreams of a recording contract soon realize that the bar gigs haven’t stopped. They will still find places like the late, lamented Jack’s Sugar Shack, at Hollywood and Vine, where I saw Robert Earl Keen, Kelly Willis and Billy Joe Shaver lead their bands through the same front door the paying customers used and head straight to the stage. So it goes when a joint doesn’t have a dressing room. WORKING-CLASS RAGE, TEXAS LEGENDS Maybe it was the kind of thing that musicians who play bars realize comes with the turf. Maybe some of them even think it keeps their noses stuck in the reality that fuels their music. That’s how the Hangdogs strike me, anyway, though I’ve never made it to Manhattan’s Rodeo Bar to see them. But I have checked out their Web site, which bills them as “New York’s favorite cadre of lovable losers and the official band of the Booze Council.” No thin skins here. No limp-wristed music, either. I’ve listened to the Hangdogs’ album, “Beware of Dog,” and they can play sad or funny, but best of all, they can play with a sense of the working-class rage our CEO culture needs as badly as a steam cleaning. But until I catch the Dogs in person, I can’t put them on the same pedestal as the Resentments, who salt the popcorn the way a bar band should. Though credentials are hardly mandatory in the world of cover charges and Led Zeppelin requests, the Resentments come with all kinds of them. Steve Bruton and Jon Dee Graham have solo albums of their own, and Bruton has served honorably in bands backing Kris Kristofferson, Bonnie Raitt and a whole South by Southwest Conference’s worth of Texas legends. Graham made his bones as one of the True Believers, and Jud Newcomb — Scrappy, if you will — did likewise with Loose Diamonds before Toni Price, one of those treasures Austin keeps for itself, hired him for her band. On his night off, he becomes a Resentment. And the Resentments do what they’ve always done, playing for fun and their love of rock, blues and country. MAMBO’S BEAT Since cancer killed Mambo John Treanor last year, their music has served a second purpose as an ongoing tribute to what Graham calls the drummer’s “sweet and freaky memory.” Mambo gets a “guardian angel” credit on “Sunday Night Line-Up,” and even though he was failing badly when the album was recorded, his beat is the backbone of every song, from Bruton’s “That’s Love” to Scrappy’s “Been So Wicked” to Graham’s “Big Sweet Life.” When the Resentments took a rare road trip to Los Angeles in March, it was with Mambo in mind and without a drummer to replace him, or a bass player, either. They played McCabe’s Guitar Shop, which doesn’t serve anything harder than coffee and cider. I’m not sure anybody noticed the lack of alcohol. Scrappy did Chuck Berry’s “Bye-Bye Johnny,” Graham did Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Takin’ Care of Business” (honest), and Bonnie Raitt showed up to sing harmony for old friend Bruton. Everything was loud and loosey-goosey, just the way you want it from a band whose motto is “No gig too small, no fee too large.” And if there wasn’t room to get up and dance, if you couldn’t just kick the chairs out of the way and shake a tail feather, you danced in your head. Lost in the house of gravity. John Schulian is a TV writer-producer in Los Angeles. He writes the weekly column “Against the grain” for MSNBC’s Living section.
Resentments  08/27/2002            
Austin360.com
The Saxon Pub's showcase of the Resentments has become a Sunday event. The Resentments are true showmen who can lay down one-liners as effortlessly as power chords. The only thing to resent about this act is that they haven't cut an album, yet.
Add Review   More Review