Good Bands Alert: CBR and Hub Hollow

From the Desk of Ned P. Rauch:

Let’s say you like Lowell George-era Little Feat and Izzy Stradlin’s first solo record, Dwight Yoakam and, say, the Drive-By Truckers and Drag the River. Well, my money says you’ll really like a band I had the good fortune to see Friday night in the horse country of New Jersey. Citizens Band Radio, in addition to having the coolest tour bus I’ve ever seen, put on a knockout show. Pedal steel, Telecaster, mandolin, acoustic guitar, bass, drums—loud, fast, lots of swing. The second song they played was a Georgia Satellites tune, which they killed. And their originals were plenty strong. The lead singer looks like a Forty-Niner—not a football player but one of the gold-panners after whom the team was named. He’s huge, bearded, and looks like he just rolled down from the hills. That doesn’t hurt in the ol’ stage presence department.

But my night in Jersey’s sweet spot began, after grilled kabobs at my cousins’ place, with a performance by Hub Hollow, a really sharp string band from the area. These guys can flat out sing and play. The guitar player, especially, can rip. Mostly covers, but they chose some dandies, including a few from the Band, which always pushes my buttons, one from Eilen Jewell and Johnny Darrell’s “Why You Been Gone So Long,” which was a fave of two bands I used to play in: Backseat Cougars and Thirty Thieves and the Thunder Chief. Last thing about Hub Hollow: They’re all friends with my cousins, so I can tell you they’re not only top-shelf players, they’re also nice as all get out and in, which counts for something, no?