Artist: Foster & Lloyd
Album: It's Already Tomorrow
Bitrate: 244kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Effen Ell Records
Genre: Country
Size: 84.83 megs
PlayTime: 0h 45min 47sec total
Rip Date: 2011-06-01
Store Date: 2011-05-03
Track List:
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01. It's Already Tomorrow 3:32
02. That's What She Said 3:32
03. If It Hadn't Been For You 2:56
04. Lucky Number 3:33
05. Picasso's Mandolin 4:21
06. Hiding Out 2:41
07. Just This Once 3:50
08. Something 'Bout Forever 3:50
09. Can't Make Love Make Sense 3:06
10. Hold That Thought 3:44
11. Don't Throw It Away 4:47
12. Watch Your Movie 3:19
13. When I Finally Let You Go 2:36
Release Notes:
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This Foster and Lloyd reunion could've gone very differently. It's been no less
than 20 years since they called it quits, and back in the day ù as documented by
three albums and a best-of collection ù they'd had the sort of fresh, youthful
energy that just can't be manufactured. For a moment there, they were the next
big thing ù a Beatles- and Buck Owens-loving dynamic duo charting on a major
country label.
Radney Foster and Bill Lloyd have each done a lot in the music business since
then. Foster's been having a good run as a neo-trad Texas country act, with
sizable cuts and producer credits to boot. He's also seen the darker side of the
industry: Label support slipped right out from under 1999's polished pop album
See What You Want to See. Lloyd's been no less busy, releasing power-pop albums,
getting cuts, playing sessions and producing ù not to mention his respectable
work with the First Amendment Center and the Country Music Hall of Fame and
Museum. But during his tenure with country supergroup The Sky Kings, he also saw
their albums shelved by two separate labels.
So how did Foster and Lloyd manage to give It's Already Tomorrow ù their first
album since 1990 ù more kick than they'd ever had, without any accumulated
business baggage? "I don't think we were overthinking it," says Foster from a
tour stop in Texas. "We were just two old friends getting back together and
really having a good time writing some good songs. And that put us, I think, in
that youthful spot where we didn't feel like we were having to do something for
something, so we didn't really self-edit that much." He laughs, "That's how you
get 'That's What She Said.' "
Lloyd elicits further laughter from Foster with a wry comment about their sense
of timing. "We wanted a healthy business model to return to," he says. "We
wanted to wait until it was just about over before we [came back]. Nobody can
say we're doing this for the money, I'll tell you that."
The song Foster is referring to, "That's What She Said," is a hooky, smart-ass
twang-rock number that goes exactly where it sounds like it would ù one of many
witty, hormone-charged pop triumphs on the new album. There's also "Can't Make
Love Make Sense" and "Hold That Thought," which features power-chord riffing
from Cheap Trick's Tom Petersson.
These days, there's just plain more rock attack to Foster and Lloyd's sound, and
Foster offers an explanation: "One journalist at one point back then said, 'OK,
so Rank and File and The Blasters are rock bands, but you guys and Steve Earle
are country acts. Why is that?' Bill rightly said, 'Because they got signed to a
rock label and we got signed to country labels.' You, by natural attrition, just
go, 'Well, I'll just dial it 10 percent more this way, or 10 percent more that
way.' The cool thing about not having those parameters [now] is you don't have
to worry about that."
"I can tell you, just guitar-sound-wise, I don't feel like I have to tame
anything down," adds Lloyd. "I mean, we're not thinking radio formats anymore.
We're just thinking about pleasing ourselves. And whatever crunch that Radney
and I are not afraid to dial in to our guitars, we also have the extra crunch of
Tom Petersson sounding like Cheap Trick."
Petersson is playing bass for Foster and Lloyd (Cheap Trick recorded a song of
Lloyd's and enlisted him as a guitarist for some Sgt. Pepper's tribute shows),
and the band is rounded out by Foster's longtime drummer Keith Brogdin. It's the
same core lineup that played the gig that restarted it all last year ù a benefit
show for the Americana Music Association.
But It's Already Tomorrow isn't all amped-up energy. There are other noticeably
new and welcome additions to the duo's repertoireùsongs that reflect on the
passage of time. The title track, for one, isn't the sort of thing they would've
written in the late '80s.
"I don't think we had enough life experiences at that point," says Foster.
"Hopefully, any songwriter worth his salt will mature as you get older, in sort
of a lyrical sense. But what you hope is that you don't lose sight of the energy
that it took to get you where you are as a writer in the first place."