May 2, 2005
Cable music show producer Cecilia Populus-Eudave gave Small Business a nice review.
Read the review below or at the Associated Content website.
Lane & the Badass Chickenbones
Don't let the name fool ya! Accessible Alt-Country you can sink your teeth into!
By Cecilia Populus-Eudave
Lane Murchison offers up his best songwriting to date with his second full CD release Small Business. Among the eleven tracks Lane and the Badass Chickenbones have created a collection of sweet alternative country love songs tinged with humorous lyrics making their melodies even more embraceable. Take “Wild Freeway Flowers,” an amusing saga of a boy taking his favorite girl out for a ride in his beat up car “…my front tire is bald and the steel is showing through, but I ain’t got a care because I’m riding next to you." On a more serious note, “My Love,” written for his six string, is a crushingly beautiful song. Murchison’s guitar work shines brilliantly on the track as his vocals express strikingly honest sentiment. Lane and the Badass Chickenbones’ music combines swirling guitars, soulful fiddle playing, and sparse percussion arrangements in a novel fashion. “Mumblin’ Carol” is a great example of the group’s unique vision. The waltz-flavored tune tells the story of a homeless and wandering woman set to a haunting arrangement.
Lane and the Badass Chickenbones’ main man Murchison surrounded himself with a group of accomplished musicians this time out. Multi-instrumentalist James Nash contributes additional acoustic and electric guitar work, mandolin, bass and backing vocals on Small Business. It is noteworthy that Nash and Murchison both play a myriad of percussion instruments on Small Business including a beer bottle and a can of Morton salt! Marissa Martinez is prolific on fiddle and rounding out the solid rhythm section is veteran bass player Mike Anderson and talented drummer Kevin Woodhouse. Together these musicians can almost melt down your sound system by tearing through a scorcher like “Chicken Bone Song” and then turn around and offer you the sublime beauty of “My Love.” It’s obvious that Murchison possesses a genuine love for his craft, which saturates Small Business making alternative country relevant once again for the masses.
GIGS