Reviews For The Piney Gir Country Roadshow Single

The Plastic Ashtray (Via)

Piney Gir is a flexable lady. Her shifts in style and sound go as far a field as electro, pop & Indie but there's something comfortable about her brand of country rock. The London based singer aptly says in ther press release, " You can take the girl out of Kansas but you can't take Kansas out of the girl", giving a hint to her time in the US where she ended up breaking down in Colorado for 2 weeks and had to get jobs to pay for car parts. [I'm sure i've seen a film with Joaquin Phoenix in with a smilar story, but that involved alot more devious happenings..]. Only 21 she felt inspired to write about her experiences and backed by her band give a slice of Country to great effect.

The two songs here are sassy, classy & catchy little hoe-downs. 'Great Divide' shows off her sugar sweet voice which ranges from Dolly Parton to Juliana Hatfield. Loveable yet not too mushy. She's sweet but clever & rather cool. Catchy chord changes lead this country road trip, whilst steal guitars & violins duel for importance. This is great pop written for a different genre. There's something refeshing about these two tracks. 'Great Divide' being the 'thoughtful' of the two, whilst 'Trouble' the wayward son. 'Trouble' is upbeat, fun & one to move to. Recalling the Beatles brief obsession with country, Piney pulls this off with conviction. 'Trouble' being the hard drinking, wry smile of a song & in country tradition references Whiskey, surely it must to be convincing!?. Right down to it's bounding beat & American midwest piano workout. This is great pop.

For those uninterested in country music or those who have no pallette for different music styles, this is a welcome break. If you can stomach great songwriting, and fun pop hooks then you are in the right place. The Piney Gir Country Roadshow are a hoot.

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Rockfeedback (Via)

‘A Great Divide’ is a pleasant, relaxed track, one sounding close to something you might hear on a rubbish MOR American film but without some whiney idiot ruining the music by singing all over it. Here, although Piney Gir’s vocals are very true to traditional country, there’s something much more palatable about this lass’s voice.

Other track ‘Trouble’, a recording designed to show the bands dynamism, is a lot more fun – really rather upbeat, and the much stronger of the two. One of the catchiest lines ‘you’re trouble but I love you so’ explains its whole gist – you know – it’s a light hearted boy and girl country song. Simple, true, but the general structure is fantastic, a catch line in the chorus, a catch line in the verse, catch lines here there and every bloody where. Subtle changes in the verses along with a great little solo provide the build and release of tension before it’s over. Ahh. Lovely.

These songs aren’t over laboured, work as nice casual little ditties, and there’s a lot of things on this recording that hint towards Piney Gir being a really fun live band, though due to their most twee of natures, they’d be one of the sort you would want to see sandwiched between Sunn O))) and Merzbow. Y’know - just to mess things up a bit.

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God Is In The TV (Via)

Love the idea of country music but get put off by the drawling accents or sickly production? Then read on, because Piney Gir’s got a present for you. Here’s a clue, it’s not the A-side ‘Great Divide’, a mid-paced song which wraps coursing, fluid pedal steel and fiddle around Piney’s vocals, which sound a touch nasal as she tells tales of “pitstops in Colorado” and “never goin’ back”, as it’s certainly pleasant but only seems like the warm up for what comes next.

Because it’s ‘Trouble’ on the flip that’s the gem; a sparkling, hip-shimmying, smile-inducing little riot of a song that introduces us to country music that shakes, rattles AND rolls. All teasing hi-hat and coy whiskey-chaser lyrics, it’s a simply irresistible song that grabs your hand and pulls you onto the dancefloor before you know what’s hit you.

So, you heard about it here first, now go out and get a very limited 7” vinyl or we’ll round up a posse for your sorry ass. Or something. GO!  (4/5)

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Gigwise Review (via)

Having made quite a name for herself due to her electro, indie, pop ventures back in 2004 with the release of the Peakahokahoo album, Piney Gir has been very busy modeling another persona to add to her schizophrenic musical lifestyle. The Country-Piney persona has written quite the decent little ditty in the form of the double A–side single. ‘Great Divide’ oozes quality and road-trip blues akin to the likes of early Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris with the spite and pseudo innocent venom that Alanis Morissette used to conjure up. At times Piney Gir’s music is a little cheesy with cliché country music-isms about crossroads and deserts, but her music is in no way tiresome. For fans of the Caitlin Cary part of Whiskeytown and drunken tales of break ups in the desert, this music is for you as violins, rocking chair banjos and acoustic guitars are a plenty on this release that the talented Ms. Piney Gir has bestowed upon us. One part cutesy-pie, nine parts devil in a polka dot dress.

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From Maps Magazine (via)

Why Piney Gir is much like a spinach and cheese wrap

As a child, I always hated spinach - to be honest, I'm sure most kidswould say the same. Despite the best efforts of Popeye the Sailorman to convince us of it's Herculean strength giving properties, there was absolutely nothing that you could have done to force the revolting green stuff down my throat, not even for a million transformer toys, or the last sticker I needed to complete my 1990 World Cup Pannini sticker album.

So deeply entrenched was my hatred of this leafy vegetable, that itwasn't until a few weeks ago that I finally gave it a second chance, much against my better judgement, at a dinner party thrown by one of our school governors. When the first course appeared as a spinach & cheese wrap, two conflicting viewpoints clashed furiously in my subconscious - the bratty 7 year old inside me, sulking and screaming in outrage at being served this noxious concoction took on the mature, professional adult that I occasionally pretend to be these days, who considers keeping someone who has ultimate power over my employment status happy worth taking a few mouthfuls of hors d'oeuvre for.

Eventually, adult-me won the battle, sent kid-me to it's room in ahuff and bit the bullet (or rather the crispy pancake wrap). Much to my surprise, I didn't instantly fall to the floor gagging at the poisonous substance lodged in my throat, but found myself rather enjoying it.

I've had a similarly longstanding aversion to country music. I blame my Dad, who would subject the household to crackly recordings of yodelling yokels turned up loud enough that he could hear it over the noise of the lawnmower in the garden (he's also responsible for an early dislike of blues, hiking and moustaches).

Until last year, it was a dislike that had held firm (country musicthat is, not moustaches - though I've still never even contemplated growing one myself), until that fateful spinach and cheese wrap moment arrived at Truck Festival 2005 on the main stage, watching the delectable Piney Gir. The charm, humour and massive frocks on show blew away my deep seatedanti-country prejudices and within minutes I was grinning like a fool, dancing along to accordion-led hoe downs.

Fast forward a year, and following another heart-stoppingperformance featuring a troupe of line-dancers at this year's Truck, Piney releases her first single under her Country Roadshow guise on the fledgling Sounds Experience label.

Live, a large part of the appeal is Piney herself and hereffervescent charm and contagious enthusiasm, and short of bussing her in to the front rooms of each of the 500 people that buy this limited release, it's never going to be quite the same experience on vinyl (even if it is hand numbered). Nevertheless, 'Great Divide' proves that there's substance behind the petticoats and vintage dresses. A rusty fiddle introduction leads into Piney's lilting vocal, shuffly drums and a toe-tapping little ditty about hitting the road and heading on down the open highway, as country singers seem to do rather more often than the rest of us. Double A side 'Trouble' is a more uptempo number, and feature both pedal steel guitar and a train whistle, so is of course undeniably ace.

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