Artist: Mud Blood and Beer

2 Years after their debut self-titled release Mud, Blood & Beer (from a line in Johnny Cash's classic A Boy Named Sue, "Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer") featured here on Beat Surrender the boys are back with Gone for Good a five-track EP featuring more of the New York based quartets urban alt-country. You can pick up their debut release as a free download here or better still on disc here . Homepage Buy

Mud, Blood and Beer are Jess Hoeffner (guitar, vocals), Stephen Swalsky (bass), Jason Fine (guitar, vocals), and Stephen Sperber (drums) the band take their name from "Kicking and a' gouging in the mud and the blood and the beer" a line from Cash classic "A Boy Named Sue". The New York based four-piece take some elemental rock riffs and combine them successfully with essential twang and jangle to create an excellent début album, although it treads a familiar alt-country rock path it takes in a wide range of influences [...]

• Fields and Factories » 05 Fields & Factories.mp3

You'd think with a blatant Johnny Cash-referencing name like Mud, Blood & Beer (" kickin' and a-gouging' in the mud and the blood and the beer " - "A Boy Named Sue"), not to mention the longhorn skull on the album cover, that this New York band would fall easily into the alt country area of musical definitions (which is basically what I spent 3 years in the late 90's listening to exclusively). For the most part they do fit that profile - there are plenty of two-steppin' drum beats, the kind of guitar playing that sounds like [...]

• Mud, Blood & Beer - Fields & Factories
• Mud, Blood & Beer - I Am Not the Road