I lived in Gainesville, Fla. for seven years of my life and it was miserable. It was graduate school. But Gainesville is notable for producing some pretty significant musical acts. Chief among them, of course, Tom Petty. Then Hot Water Music — to whom we’ll return here — and Against Me!. These latter two of course got picked up by Alkaline Trio for national tours and they blew up in the divergent ways they did.
Anyway, Chuck Ragan, the lead singer and frontman of the once and former band known as Hot Water Music, is apparently something of an asshole, so that no one can work with him. The post-hardcore sound he developed with HWM certainly influenced others after him — Bear vs. Shark comes to mind — and that band did some very good things.
Ragan has since moved on and unplugged. Ragan now writes folk-country-bluegrass alloys that are really quite nice. That song up there at top comes from one of his many artsy projects. Rumbleseat in fact produced a song called “Shithouse Rat,” about a crazy ass motorist who blasts over 100 mph past highway patrol out of sheer DARING. That’s where the shithouse rat offense thing came from, by the way.
At any rate, Ragan’s a great listen, if not a great person. I don’t know him, so I can’t make a judgment. Gainesville people who know him don’t like him. Oh well.
So drop into the comments and let’s talk about this disaster. I’ll be totally drunk. You should be too.