Horseshoe is pushing rock’s roots through the looking glass and into a wonderland of bright new images and themes. It’s the end of the millennium and rock music is all grown up now; labels and formats are the leftovers of rock’s adolescence. Horseshoe goes where the music goes and takes the songs wherever they lead -- genre labels be damned.

Rock and Roll began as a synthesis of forms -- blues, country and gospel, and it evolves as more and more influences get thrown into the blender. The best bands, the bands that will lead the music into the next century, are cooking up new recipes from the old ingredients. The results are sometimes comfortable and familiar, sometimes jolting and exotic, but always interesting. Horseshoe challenges and confronts, but ultimately invites the listener to feast on this Primordial Soup of styles. King of the World, Horseshoe's critically acclaimed debut album, is only the first course.

Some bands follow the light; Some bands are the light. Horseshoe welcomes you to switch on King of the World and hear the difference yourself.

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Lucky Horseshoe
Hobart Rowland | March 13, 1997 | 4:00am

Somebody up there likes me, so they provide me with little accidents of grace.

Horseshoe, 1996.

That may be true in concept, but at the moment, Greg Wood, Horseshoe's burly lead singer, looks less like an accident of grace than a walking disaster. It's a Sunday morning, and Wood -- decked out in his favorite casual wear, a T-shirt and black gym shorts -- is a touch strung out. He's been awake all night, and airborne debris from last night's performance at the Blue Iguana (cigarette ashes, lint, whatnot) is still nesting in his mass of tangled, curly brown hair. The gig went well, Wood confides, though he's not sure if the club's management was happy with the turnout. Still, the band kept it together nicely, and when you consider that Horseshoe's live shows have a habit of sounding like rehearsals -- and its rehearsals like something found just this side of hell -- that's no small footnote.

And neither, for that matter, is the band's first-ever showcase slot at Austin's South by Southwest Music Conference this week. In a year when the number of Houston acts invited to play the event is pitifully small, Horseshoe managed to be among the chosen. Still, flanked by Horseshoe drummer Eddie Hawkins and guitarist Scott Daniels at a local eatery, Wood is doing his best to make it appear like he couldn't care less.

"Fuck South by Southwest," he says. "I [tried] to get into that thing for years when I didn't have a CD. I thought it was supposed to be for unsigned acts to get noticed by labels -- bands that don't have a way to make an album. Now that we have a CD, all of sudden they want us."

No thanks, as it happens, to any of the guys in Horseshoe. It was their self-appointed manager/ guardian angel Alice Romero who, unbeknownst to Horseshoe, submitted the band's material to SXSW. But while Romero provided the impetus, it's more than likely that the group's stunningly varied debut CD, King of the World (on the group's own Hiccup label) sealed the deal. Released late last year, King of the World is an unruly 73-minute behemoth, its unorthodox helping of styles and potluck fusion of influences as generous as its sprawling length. There's Southern-fried boogie rock a la Lynyrd Skynyrd and Little Feat (Wood's grainy vocals and white-trash beat poetry bear more than a passing resemblance to Feat's long-deceased creative light Lowell George); heart-wringing C&W balladry in the Bakersfield tradition; and crafty hints of the band's affection for bands from the British Invasion (the original invasion, that is). Even Wood's obsession with the hair-trigger repetition of '60s psychedelic rock seeps out on a few tracks. It seems that Horseshoe's philosophy of making music is akin to its philosophy of eating: It doesn't really matter what you mix together on your plate. Everything goes to the same place.

"We're robust," says Hawkins. "We don't do things in moderation."
Adds Wood, "I don't necessarily buy into the fact that CDs have to be any specific length. King of the World is a bunch of songs, it's a CD, man. You don't even have to get up from your chair; you can just sit on your fat ass and skip around from your seat. And people are complaining because it's too long." Wood opens his arms to show off his substantial midsection. "Does it look like I know how to cut back?"

Horseshoe rose from the debris of Tab Jones, a band that aspired to bring a little rootsy authenticity -- not to mention the twisted gospel of Pink Floyd's crazed former leader Syd Barrett -- to a Houston audience that, at the time, was munching contentedly on well-chewed thrash-metal and the fresher seeds of grunge. Wood, Hawkins and Daniels were all members of Tab Jones, and when that group sputtered out quietly in 1992, the three took a two-year sabbatical to recover their wits. They launched Horseshoe in 1994, bringing aboard bassist Ben Collis, an old colleague of Daniels's from Fleshmop, and guitarist Cary Winscott to fill out the lineup. Soon, they were growing up, and messing up, in public, headlining at Last Concert Cafe, Rudyard's Pub and Mary Jane's, the last of which eventually hired them as Wednesday-night regulars.

As the months wore on, Horseshoe originals began sharing time with Johnny Cash, George Jones and Merle Haggard covers. Wood, the son of a truck driver, is an insatiable reader who gives little thought to tossing out literary references in song (two glaring instances are King of the World's "William Yeats" and "Lester Bangs"). Between Wood jotting down lyrics by the journalful and input from Daniels and Hawkins, the tunes came pouring out faster than the band could learn them.

By June 1995, Horseshoe was putting its ideas on tape at studios all over the state -- among them Loma Ranch in Fredericksburg and Sound Arts in Houston -- with Hawkins, a competent engineer, behind the boards. But money problems ensured that it would be a while before any of the material could make it to CD, which partly explains King of the World's pieced-together feel.

"It started out to be a little bit of a different album," says Hawkins. "Horseshoe as an early band kind of sounds like [much of] what's on the CD .... Some of the rawer stuff actually came in the later sessions."

Horseshoe was originally slated to make its first SXSW appearance March 6 as part of a showcase at the Driskill Hotel's Crystal Ballroom, but the band rescheduled to come in a day early so it could be part of a Wednesday, March 5 Justice Records showcase at Stubb's, with Carolyn Wonderland and the Imperial Monkeys, Shaver, Kimmie Rhodes and Tab Benoit. They're staying in Austin through Thursday, though, to play an exhibit opening with Wonderland at the Laughing at the Sun gallery. Horseshoe chose to hop onboard with Justice as a goodwill gesture toward the label's owner, Randall Jamail. Justice hasn't signed the band -- yet -- but Jamail has agreed to help distribute King of the World, no strings attached.

"With Eddie and I, all we want to do is make records," says Wood. "All this other stuff is confusing to us. I don't want to be naive or stupid, but the hard part is reminding myself every day that I'm supposed to be making a living doing this."

Then, just like that, Wood is off on another of his signature tangents, inspired by a question about the band's stated appetite for psychedelic drugs, mention of which occasionally crops up in Wood's lyrics. "I realize that it might sound like advocacy, and I really don't like that," Wood says. "It really is a personal thing. The problem is, you can't say anything -- even the bad stuff -- because they've co-opted all the negative imagery into this whole PR thing against drugs."

Equally confusing to Wood is the inclination of some writers to lump Horseshoe into the alternative country movement spearheaded, to an extent, by No Depression magazine. Last year, the publication even featured Horseshoe in its pages.

"In the great, grand scope of things, we fit right in; we're an American band, we're influenced by primal American sounds -- very traditional country, very traditional bluegrass," Wood says. "But in terms of the direction we're heading in, no, [we don't belong to alternative country]."

And what direction would Horseshoe be heading in?
"We'll be honest with you," admits Wood, "we don't know where we're going."
Perhaps so, but at least the band knows where it's been, and how it wants to make its journey. So wherever Horseshoe winds up might happen by accident, but you can be pretty sure that it's not about to be graceful.

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Just when one is ready to write off the pop scene in Houston, along comes Horseshoe. Any collection of songs that invoke William Yeats, Robert Johnson and Lester Bangs is a witty, literate and intelligent brew. The first Horseshoe CD is a wonderful collection of songs. With a country feel, psychedelic vision and southern spice, the band mixes their influences faster than a blender. The core of the band consists of writer and vocalist Greg Wood, guitarist Scott Daniels and drummer Ed Hawkins, all formerly with Tab Jones. Bass player Ben Collis (formerly with Fleshmop) is a class musician. Guitarist Cary Winscott rounds out the group.

"King Of the World" and "Saints" are perfect songs, although there's not one stinker in this 21 song collection. If this initial effort is any indication, Horseshoe is one of the most talented bands in Texas.

Horseshoe opens for David Allen Coe at Rockefeller's on Dec. 21 and headlines at the Blue Iguana on January 3.

-Aaron Howard

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excerpt from
"THRASH 'n' TWANG"
an article from the
Houston Chronicle's
Zest Magazine
March 10, 1996



by Rick Mitchell

It's Friday night at Dan Electro's Guitar Bar in the Heights, one of several nightclubs where local bands can play original music. The group onstage, Horseshoe, looks like your typical post-punk rock outfit: long hair, disheveled clothes and an excess of don't-give-a- rusty-buckle attitude.

Yet, when the musicians start to play, it's obvious their roots go back further than punk or grunge. They do play loud and fast sometimes, and they're not overly concerned with polish. But rather than ritual thrashing or aimless noodling, Horseshoe favors real songs, the kind with thoughtful lyrics and well-defined melodies.

The singer, an unshaven, heavy-set fellow in his early 30's, is prone to jumping off the stage and belting it out from the middle of the dance floor. While he's obviously enjoying himself, he never loses sight of the fact that his primary role is to deliver the songs.

Perhaps what's most revealing about Horseshoe is its choice of cover tunes, which range from folk-rock gems by Bob Dylan and John Prine to classic rock by the Beatles and Rolling Stones to hard-core country by Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard and George Jones.

The crowd, an unusual cross-section of young punks, old hippies and a smattering of cowboy hats, soaks it all up appreciatively. But they reserve their greatest enthusiasm for country classics like White Lightnin' and Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down.

So the Okie from Muskogee enters the age of the mosh pit. What is happening here? Is the post-punk generation going country, or is country jumping on the flannel bandwagon?

"The younger crowd seems to love the country stuff," says Greg Wood, vocalist and songwriter for Horseshoe, which plays every Wednesday at Mary Jane's. "They call out for it.

"But when we play for an older, country-oriented crowd, we find we get a strong reaction to the non-country material. We become more of a blues and rock 'n' roll band."

Of course, the distinction between rock and country music has never been as clear-cut in Texas as in other parts of the country. From Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison to Joe Ely and Steve Earle, the state has a long tradition of singer-songwriters who don't recognize much of a distinction between the two.

In the '90s, Texas bands such as Killbilly and the Bad Livers have combined punk-rock attitude with bluegrass instrumentation. Austin is at the center of a growing alternative-country movement that out-flanks Nashville's homogenized country-pop on both sides - either by keeping it strictly traditional, or by playing it closer to rock's razor-sharp edge.

But post-punk country, if we can call it that, is hardly a Texas-only phenomenon. From Raleigh, NC to Seattle, WA, alternative rockers have been digging at long-buried folk and country roots.

Horseshoe's Greg Wood is leary of being lumped in with the trend. But he agrees that the alternative country and alternative rock audiences are cross-pollinating these days, not that they haven't before.

"I saw Dwight Yoakam open for the Blasters in this town ten years ago," Wood says. "I was one of those people who have been brainwashed into thinking that there was something different between the mind-set of someone who would like a David Allan Coe song and someone who would like a Rolling Stones song. I've since found out that there isn't that much difference."

Wood, 32, professes a lifelong love of country music. A Kentucky native, he is particularly partial to bluegrass. But he didn't start singing and writing songs until about 6 years ago. His first inspiration was the late Country Dick Montana.

"I saw a Beat Farmers show and I thought, 'I think I could do that,' " Wood says.

His first band, Tab Jones, began as psychedelic jammers with a reputation for wild stage antics. (Wood was partial to literary readings from the works of Charles Bukowski and Henry Miller, not to mention Penthouse magazine's Letter to the Editor section.)

As a joke, the band started throwing in vintage country covers. "It sort of took, and so inadvertantly we became a country-rock band," Wood says, looking halfway apologetic.

Horseshoe was conceived as a more straightforward musical project, with psychedelic rock, blues and country equal parts of the mix.

"If we have a flaw, it's that we try to do too much," Wood says. "Sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp. But I would get bored just doing one thing. That's why I couldn't be in a punk band or a straight country band."

He expresses disdain for rock bands that dally with fiddles and steel guitars, or toss in a token country cover on their albums.

"It's too easy to fall into that Faraway Eyes trap, when you end up making light of what you're trying to promote," he says, referring to the Rolling Stones' seventies satirical country tune.

"It's not that easy. Country music is an old and honorable tradition. It shouldn't be messed with by people who don't listen to it. I'm much more interested in incorporating a country feel and attitude into a rock song than in using a few genre cliches to make it country. I want to up the ante."

In the meantime, Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down will do just fine.

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"HORSESHOE"
an article from the
Houston Headline
November '95


by Trip


I was sitting around trying to think of a way to describe the music of Horseshoe when I read Kid Red's description: "gonzo country". I like this description so I will borrow it if I may. I would, however, like to expand the description : Horseshoe is not purely country, these guys rock!

Horseshoe plays the kind of redneck rock that made America great. Their music stems from the same spirit that inspired folks like Jerry Jeff Walker, Waylon Jennings, and other adventurous souls. Actually the music of Horseshoe is a merging of country, folk, hillbilly, traditional and psychedelic rock. Therefore, a working description of Horseshoe's music might be: "Gulf Coast Gonzo Country Fried Rock".

The members of Horseshoe consist of Greg Wood - vocals, Scott Daniels - guitar, Cary Winscott - guitar, Ben Collis - bass, and Eddie Hawkins - drums. The current line-up has been together less than a year so one might call them a relatively new band.

Horseshoe was born out of the break-up of three bands: Tab Jones, Fleshmop and Pork Belly Picnic. Former Tab Jones members include Greg Wood, Ed Hawkins, and Scott Daniels. Scott also played in Fleshmop with Ben Collis and Cary Winscott came from Pork Belly Picnic.

The band has been playing around Houston for the past several months and is getting better all the time. New tunes are being added to the show almost weekly, and the crowds are growing also. Horseshoe has often shared the bill with bands like Carolyn Wonderland & the Imperial Monkeys, the Hightailers and the Sundowners and often members of each band will join each other on stage for a jam. You never know what might develop; there have been some great jams.

Horseshoe shows are not a passive experience. Greg wanders about the audience while singing and he may join you and your party at your table for a song. The band's rockin' honky-tonk music makes you want to grab a honey and do some dancin'. If you can't find a honey it will make you want to grab a beer or a shot. This here's whiskey drinkin' music.

Greg's stage presence is a bit like Pig Pen, Joe Cocker, and Jim Morrison all rolled into one. Greg has an excellent voice and if you catch him on a good night when he's into it he's great. I have heard more than a handful of people provide favorable comment on his voice.

Horseshoe gigs are a combination of original and cover material. Cover songs include material by the likes of Johnny Cash, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, John Prine, the Beatles, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, the Stones, Hank Williams (SR. & JR.), Willie Nelson, David Allan Coe, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. Original material - just as inspiring as their covers - consists of songs about drinkin', dopin', fuckin', lovin', lust, adventure, sin and all the other wonderful vices that make up the human experience.

Scott and Eddie collaborate on the instrumental side of the song writing, along with contributions from the rest of the band, Devon Fletcher and Rob Mahan. Greg writes all the lyrics and is very profound at times. Reportedly Greg has volumes of finished lyrics which may contribute to more original material. Currently there are about 40 - 50 original tunes that Horseshoe draws upon on any given night. The band has an additional 20 songs completed that rarely, or never, make it into the set rotation. Therefore, the well of original material doesn't look to run dry any time in the near future.

The group is recording an album which they hope to have out by Christmas. The recording was done at Loma Ranch in Fredericksburg, TX. Mixing and post- production work is taking place at Sound Arts Studio here in Houston. The CD will contain approximately 19 songs, all original with the exception of one John Lennon song. Selections will include "King of the World", "Yeah, So", "Mockingbird", "Gettin' Wet", "No Shit", "Germany", "Loma", "Sam Kinison", and others. Studio versions of songs may be somewhat of a departure from Horseshoe's energetic live sound, but should prove interesting none the less. After the release of the CD, the band plans a swift follow-up album. There is the possibility that a live recording may be done at some point in the future as well.

Horseshoe is a group of multi-talented individuals with their eyes on the future. Their goal is to take the show on the road as soon as possible. These gentlemen want to make music their career, and I believe they have what it takes. They create some of the best home-grown stuff in Houston and they get my vote for "best new band" in this year's Public News, Houston Press and the Houston Headline music awards.

Horseshoe's infectious southern vibe can be experienced at places such as Rudyard's, the Satellite Lounge, Rockefeller's, Dan Electro's, Last Concert Cafe as well as Mary Jane's, where the band plays every Wednesday night for free. If you have seen Horseshoe then you know a good time is had by all. If you haven't please do yourself a favor and check them out. It's some of the best entertainment in Houston.

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"TAKE THIS BAND AND LOVE IT"
an article from the
Houston Press

from Brad Tyer's Critic's Choice column


Iowa beatnik folkie Greg Brown was my long-scheduled reservation for this week's Critic's Choice slot, but according to the folks at Mucky Duck, where Brown was scheduled to appear on Saturday, he postponed so he wouldn't have to compete with Nanci Griffith in Houston and Austin. When you drive down once in a blue moon from Iowa, I s'pose you seize your moments strategically. Anyhow, in a week filled with Crash Worships and Laurie Andersons and Nancy Griffiths and Pegboys, I'm gonna try to steer the faithful to Rudyard's to take in Horseshoe.

It's a lowly Houston band that's been everwhere, but will never go anywhere. A band that lets fly sparks, flickeringly illuminating the asbestos cube of the Houston "scene" that engulfs it. A band tenuously composed of that inimitable bear of a man Greg Wood on vocals, the studiously soul-fingered Scott Daniels on guitar, the ridiculously multi-instrumental Eddie Hawkins on drums, Rob Mahan on guitar and Michael Danburg on bass. If you recognize some of those names - Wood and Daniels specifically - it might be from all the rave write-ups that I and many like me finally got around to writing about local beacon Tab Jones on the occasion of that fine band's dismantling.

Horseshoe isn't Tab Jones, but the similarities are there in Daniels' licks and in Wood's half-lordly, half-apologetic presence and penchant for digging hs whiskey-soaked growl into a country-rock rump till it hits bone, ripping meat and grinding teeth like a man who hasn't eaten a good song in months. Really, it's cool to watch. Horseshoe covers Johnny Paycheck's postal worker anthem "Take This Job and Shove It," and it kinda makes you want to do just that. Which is what a good country song should do. Tell you precisely how shitty your life actually is, and then prescribe some terminally self-destructive behavior as a cure.

Hey, it works for some of us. When it came in the form of the not-dissimalar Tab Jones, it started to catch on small and late. That can't be allowed to happen here. This band must become huge and famous and rich as near to instantly as possible, so that they remain tied toghther in contracts for perpetuity, unable - even into old, tired age - to shirk their collective duty to you, and to me: make us cry in our beers.

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INFO

Hiccup Records was born from the blood of a flea market belt buckle...

Greg Wood remembers it this way:"It was the mid-80's and I went to this club in Houston to catch The Blasters. The opening act that night was a guy I'd never heard of named Dwight Yoakum. He came out and did his Bakersfield thing and most of the Blasters crowd kind of acted like it was a joke, this country guy opening for a rock act. But, I don't know, I guess it's my Kentucky blood or something, but I got it. I understood the mix--hell, it made perfect sense to me."

Wood's first band as vocalist and writer was Tab Jones.

"So we go into this other room. Here is this Tab Jones. He sings. His shirt is open and the black hairs on his chest show. The hairs are sweating. His mouth is a horrible hole cut into a pancake. He's got on tight pants and he's wearing a dildo."

Charles Bukowski Hollywood, 1989

Tab Jones, formed in 1990, started out psychedelic and artsy. "We definitely had our pretensions," says Wood. "We aspired to be Syd Barrett, the band." Gradually, though, a rootsy feel started coming through the music, and the covers began tilting in a decidedly country direction. "I fought it for a while," says Wood, "but eventually I guess I just grew up enough to say the hell with it, let's do what comes naturally."

What came naturally was a blend of country, rock, folk and Barrett-esqe psychedelia. Unfortunately, the time wasn't right for this progressive mix, and Tab Jones withered on the vine, finally calling it quits in `92, just about the time a few adventurous souls statred to take notice. "Our best press coverage came for our farewell gig," sighs Wood.

Also in Tab Jones was Scott Daniels on lead guitars and Eddie Hawkins on drums. When TJ went belly up, Daniels returned to school and Hawkins to other gigs. In early `94, after a year's "sabbatical" ("sheer laziness" says Wood), Daniels, Hawkins, and Wood regrouped- -maybe "morphed" is more accurate--into Horseshoe. Added to the line-up were Ben Collis on bass and Cary Winscott on guitar.

With Horseshoe, Wood feels they've got it right. "This time we have a clear--well, clearer--idea of the mix. The original material comes organically out of a big mixed bag of influences. It's not forced so it feels natural, and that just creates more confidence to plow ahead and try new things."

The Horseshoe stage show is an unabashed celebration of American music . Covers of Haggard, Cash and Jones are thrown next to old Stones tunes or classic John Prine. And, holding their own, are the original s, so many of them the band lost count some time ago. "We don't have to do covers, but we love those older songs. Those songs remind me of the artistic mark I'm shooting for." says Wood.

Horseshoe's debut CD, King Of The World, was released on Hiccup records in late `96 to unanimous critical praise. With over 73 minutes of music and 23 original songs, it's a daunting record--one critic, who put the record on his Best of 96 List, called it "intimidating"--but the rewards are many. "We spent a lot of time on that record. We knew what sounds we wanted, and tried like hell to get them. We didn't always succeed, but it's an honest effort."

"Any collection of songs that invoke William Yeats, Robert Johnson and Lester Bangs is a witty, literate, and intelligent brew. With a country feel, psychedelic vision and southern spice, the band mixes their influences faster than a blender. King Of The World is a wonderful collection of songs".

Aaron Howard Public News Dec. 18. 1996

Horseshoe is currently busy touring and working on its next CD. "We're in this for the long haul," promises Wood. On the strength of King Of The World and Horseshoe's riveting live show, he should have no problem keeping that promise.