The 6 “Other” Country Music Archetypes
Alright, so we all had a good chuckle poking fun at the 6 Pop Country Archetypes, now let’s see what happens when I turn the poison pen towards the folks much more likely to frequent Saving Country Music; those folks that live on the fringes of the greater country music world.
Angry Bangs
Her distinguishing features are hair as black as night, skin as white as the wind driven snow, and bangs that are angrier than Sam Kennison’s id. She may not let you tie her up and gag her like her idol Betty Page, but she will sell you a T-shirt and skull patch from your favorite underground country band. Not every angry bangs girl sells merch, but every underground merch girl must have angry bangs. It’s the law. In high school she smoked cloves and thought she was a vampire. Now she hunts zombies in her tank boots and torn fishnets. She could be a militant vegan, a violent feminist, but either way, she finds identity in being a bitch. She has sex on top, and has penis envy. She can crack a bull whip and adulates about being a sex expert. Her purse is a vintage Addams Family lunchbox.
NPR Elitist
Their roots music knowledge comes from music played before NPR’s “Fresh Air”. They listen to it while driving their Prius to their office at an enviro activist think tank non-profit located in an exclusive hippie-nuveau hamlet on one of the two coasts. Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, and James McMurtry are their favorite country artists because they “appreciate their politics”. They think Emmylou Harris is hard country. They’re referred to as “they” because unlike other Archetypes, they are non-sex specific due to their insistence of a non-sex specific environment, and push for unisex bathrooms in the workplace. They like country music that isn’t too interruptive for their cocktail party or Pilates routine. They thought The Dixie Chicks were ignorant women who let their husbands beat them and taught their kids Creationism like all Texans do . . . until they said that stuff about Bush. Now they’re martyrs and an inspiration, and they love their music. They bitch about consumerism and brand loyalty, but every electronic device they own has that cute little Apple on it. They bitch about corporations and inequality, but live in the most expensive and segregated part of town, and their investment portfolio is fully vested in Exxon/Mobil, Halliburton, and Microsoft. They don’t understand that driving a Prius or a foreign car and eating organic is not a choice, but a privilege. If you don’t agree with their politics, it’s because you’re stupid. They’re food Nazis.
Punk/Metalhead Hank3 Country Convert
If you don’t like Hank3 godammit, then you’re not cockstrong! He’ll preach to you about REAL country music like WAYLON FUKIN’ JENNINGS, JOHNNY FUKIN’ CASH, and ALL THE HANKS! But can’t name you one song from Hank Snow or Hank Cochran, and has no idea the King of Country Music is in fact Roy Acuff. He’s unwilling to admit that Hank3 lost his relevancy in 2008 because he has his name tattooed in 3 different places. For some reason he feels the need to flip the bird EVERY SINGLE TIME a camera is trained on him. His country band is more underground than yours, bitching it gets no respect and is so much better than the “shit” they play on the radio, but his EP sounds like it was recorded in a toilet stall. He’s nothing more than a bad interpretation of Jello Biafra sporting an acoustic guitar. He complains he has no money for real equipment like the rich kids, but has $700 of ink below his right elbow. Anything that is popular or mainstream immediately sucks.
Hipster
Skinny jeans, deep V-neck, vintage Keds, huge glasses and an ironic mustache, he’s not really into roots music, he just want you to think he is because it’s cool. His version of roots music involves lots of uke and kazoo, a Theremin, and improvisational interpretive dance. He couldn’t roof a doghouse, but he can strip the gears off of any 80’s-era bicycle and turn it into a “fixie” in 5 minutes. At a live show, he shows appreciation for your music by acting apathetic towards it, or his disdain by overlaughing with his friends about it. He really doesn’t like this bar or this country band, he’s just scoping out a space for his friend’s shoegazer nerdcore indie rock band to play the night after the house show at his bungalo in the gentrifying part of the city. He got a job at a fair trade coffee shop after Borders closed down.
Rockabilly / Neo-Traditionalist Nerd /Newgrass Hippie Mashup
Neo-Traditionalist: Fringed pearl snap Western shirt and matching Nudie slacks, neck scarf, bolo tie, and a Howdy Doody smile, he’s country music’s equivalent of the 30-something Dungeons & Dragons nerd. His anachronistic, outdated use of phrases like “Howdy friends and neighbors!” and “Yall-Come!” and “Honky-Tonkin!” is enough to make a Trekkie think that some perspective is needed.
Rockabilly Greaser: Very similar to the neo-traditionalist in his anachronisms, but with a little more cool factor, and a lot more Dapper Dan. High arching pompadour, wallet chain, classic car, black leather jacket, rolled up shirt sleeves and jean bottoms, even Brian Setzer is embarrassed of him. He looks tough, but during the week he sells life insurance.
West Coast Newgrass Hippie Burnout: He’s got skins if you’ve got bud. He thinks Jerry Garcia invented bluegrass, and that bluegrass and reggae are mashable. He can play bad, Kermit-the-frog-like strumming banjo for your bluegrass band, or squat in a Sequoia for weeks to stop an old-growth harvest and impress the newest hot hippie runaway girl. His dog has a hemp necklace, and looks at his dundering and irresponsible owner like a kid looks at a bad stepfather. He thinks marijuana is a legitimate cure for Cancer. He drives a 1984 Volvo and lives off a trust fund.
Arrogant Music Blogger
He should be using his writing skills for something productive, but instead he finds himself way too often using it for snarky dialogue picking on others. He’s bitter that the only blogs people pay attention to are the ones bashing pop country while his in-depth album reviews and features get ignored. Sometimes he needs to chill out and understand IT’S JUST MUSIC, and stop using some bands viral video as an excuse to launch into a treatise on the inner depths of importance of artistic expression in life.
He also lives in his mom’s basement, over-glorifies the obscure music he loves while bashing anything simply because it’s popular, is strictly motivated by jealousy, and has no right to criticize music because he has never played it, never written songs, and never toured as a musician, and all the other assumptions based on an easily-identifiable stereotype that just like all stereotypes and Archetypes, are usually unfair, but nonetheless funny.
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And now I can officially retire this bit before it gets old. Thanks for reading.
December 30, 2011 @ 2:34 pm
This is hilarious. I’ve always wanted to know the spectrum of the underground crowd. Thanks for turning the pen on us. Keeps us in perspective.
December 30, 2011 @ 2:38 pm
Ha ha! I’m pretty sure I’m a little bit of some of those. I think you forgot the ‘not wanting to admit they are getting older so they hold on to the underground music scene to prove they are still cooler than you’. I know a few of them…..
December 30, 2011 @ 2:43 pm
too funny man. at least you can point at yourself (and maybe me since I live with my mom) ha ha ha. way to break the tension in this cold cruel world of underground country!
December 30, 2011 @ 3:23 pm
The second paragraph of the “Arrogant Blogger” was an homage to all the pop country fans who come here to defend one of their favorite artists, and make the same exact assumptions about me every time based on, I’m guessing, the Archetype of what they assume I am.
January 2, 2012 @ 5:16 pm
Hmmm! “Archetype” is a HUGE word to use in the same sentence as “Country Music” I trust your readers know that word. NPR people do. I’m only saying!
January 10, 2012 @ 3:10 pm
wow… take your ignorant, annoying assumptions and go away!
December 30, 2011 @ 2:52 pm
Pretty good stuff.
How about the archetype for the “country music fan” that just likes country music from any category of country.
Whatever he grew up on, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s 80’s or 90’s country, none of it is what he hears on the radio today, so he doesn’t listen to much Clear Channel radio.
He has a job, gal, maybe kids so he can’t be to hardcore about anything because, well, he has a job, gal and maybe kids.
Has zero interest in Sugarland or Lady A, loves all the greats and can name several tunes from them all, not just Folsom Prison and On The Road Again. But he also can tap his toe and enjoy a cold beverage on the beach with Kenny Chesney being played and not raise hell like any of the 6 other archetypes.
He will wear a cowboy hat and boots, wish he owned a ranch someday, but for now, no one is going to confuse him for Roy Rogers.
He will spend $90 to see George Strait, and will spend $10 to see Whitey Morgan.
He isn’t hardcore left or right, he is just looking for someone that makes sense. When it comes to entertaining music, sometimes that is Hank Sr., sometimes Waylon, sometimes Garth, sometimes Hank3 and sometimes Kid Rock.
(This could be a “she” too)
December 30, 2011 @ 3:24 pm
It probably is an Archetype, but it’s not very funny.
December 30, 2011 @ 3:46 pm
True, maybe call it “Sanity, reason, accountability and open mind type” of course than it couldn’t be a “she”.
December 30, 2011 @ 5:52 pm
Another one that isn’t very funny is the elitist snob who gets upset when any of the above archetypes are attending the same show as them. This usually results in them posting online that they’re tired of fakes and posers infiltrating “their” scene, despite everyone’s money being equally green.
December 30, 2011 @ 9:54 pm
Here here. I don’t understand when folks let a good show go bad for them just because of who is in the crowd. I take the crowd as part of the experience.
….except when it comes to hipsters. 🙂
January 2, 2012 @ 4:37 pm
Nice quotes
December 30, 2011 @ 7:34 pm
naw this was covered in the last six blog. this is just soccer mom with a dong
December 30, 2011 @ 2:59 pm
Haha, I’m totally the hank3 country convert. Oh, and on the arrogant music blogger, you forgot “loooooves Taylor Swift”. Too funny, man
December 30, 2011 @ 3:00 pm
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yup, I personally know 5 of those types (and, just perhaps, may be accused of being one or more of those)
December 30, 2011 @ 3:25 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Fucking Christ, this is all so true…and I am totally the Hank 3 convert, have totally had the shit annoyed out of me by the West Coast New Age Hippie Burnout trying to jam Black Mountain Rag with us on his fucking bongos, and the NPR guys, totally live with one. Regardless, we can’t take ourselves too seriously.
December 30, 2011 @ 3:28 pm
Hank3 lost his relevancy in 2008 ?
December 30, 2011 @ 5:19 pm
Oh now . . .
January 1, 2012 @ 3:43 pm
Thats even a stretch. Most of Hank3 fans, or should i say, “underground” country music fans would agree with me in saying Hank3 lost his relevancy after Straight To Hell.
I havnt heard anything that really makes me want to buy a new album after STH. and his newest release… I dont even know what to call it.
I do have respect for the guy for doing what he wants to do but after STH, he hasn’t put out anything that I care to listen to.
January 2, 2012 @ 11:41 pm
When it comes to saving country music and sticking it to Music Row I can totally see what you guys mean about Hank 3 losing his relevancy…but define relevant. Even if he’s not sticking it to Curb anymore, he still writes what I consider awesome music, country or not, it’s still rootsy as hell and unique.
January 3, 2012 @ 8:22 am
Totally agree with Nick. StH was my favorite album too but hank3 hasn’t put out anything that I can’t sit down and listen to all the way through multiple times and enjoy myself. Except maybe the guttertown half of his last release. I usually just skip past all the trippy noise to the music. So no matter how you define “relevant”, it’s hard to deny the man is extremely talented. Besides, if you don’t like Hank 3 goddamnit, then you’re not cockstrong!!!
December 30, 2011 @ 3:37 pm
I am most of these
January 2, 2012 @ 4:36 pm
I love this- think it’s funny shit and I would be HONORED if Trig replaced the angry bangs porn chick with a picture of me from my angry bangs days (just ask trig)- porn chick should be fairly honored too. I’m still part angry bangs (but lost the actual bangs) and a lot of Punk/Metalhead Hank3 Country Convert and being that I live in California I am pretty sure I also fall into the West Coast Newgrass Hippie Burnout if only because I actually did squat in a tree ( several really but just for fun not for protest) and my dog has owned a hemp braided collar, but it was a gift from a bonafide hippie burnout. I don’t have a volvo but if I did I’d totally drive it.
January 2, 2012 @ 4:42 pm
I’m sucha tardo…Somehow I posted my comment as a random reply to someone else’s comment. Go me…anyway, I love this- think it”™s funny shit and I would be HONORED if Trig replaced the angry bangs porn chick with a picture of me from my angry bangs days (just ask trig)- porn chick should be fairly honored too. I”™m still part angry bangs (but lost the actual bangs) and a lot of Punk/Metalhead Hank3 Country Convert and being that I live in California I am pretty sure I also fall into the West Coast Newgrass Hippie Burnout if only because I actually did squat in a tree ( several really but just for fun not for protest) and my dog has owned a hemp braided collar, but it was a gift from a bonafide hippie burnout. I don”™t have a volvo but if I did I”™d totally drive it.
January 2, 2012 @ 4:43 pm
Ok- nevermind- I don’t know why my comments keep going here…I love Muddy Roots.
January 2, 2012 @ 5:57 pm
If I’m requested to change the pic, have a good one ready for me Tawny 😉
December 30, 2011 @ 3:46 pm
Classic!
December 30, 2011 @ 4:24 pm
Great stuff! I do not live in my Mother’s basement! This is Texas and we don’t have basements goddammit!
Just kidding – sort of – I guess I’m more of a Heinz 57.
I found a little of some of these in myself. Certainly am an old hippie but don’t do drugs or drink anymore. The liver couldn’t take anymore booze and pot made me paranoid as hell! Frustrated artist who can sing like a motherfucker but has disabling stage-fright, therefore has an audience of 2 dogs and a cat and sometimes a wife and a kid when I don’t chase them out of the house with my obscure, non-mainstream, not rap, non what ever that shit is they play on clear channel radio – Uh-oh, I think I slipped into an archetype there somewhere,
Thanks for the smile Triggerman. Keep up the good work!
December 30, 2011 @ 4:25 pm
You forgot one again. The “Long Haird Hippie Musician Cosmic Cowboy”
December 30, 2011 @ 4:25 pm
sorry left off the link…
http://youtu.be/E24C4NY0ga8
December 30, 2011 @ 5:13 pm
Ha ha ha! I see a little of all of these in myself. (just like that other list was like most of my family in one way or another)
December 30, 2011 @ 8:41 pm
Ha! You used my pic of the kid with the gun
December 30, 2011 @ 8:55 pm
That picture is perfect in every way.
December 30, 2011 @ 9:21 pm
Nice. When I was commenting on the pop country version, I was trying to remember all the different types of people that were at Muddy Roots 2011.
You hit the nail on the head with angry bangs, greaser, and ironic moustache guy.
Well done.
December 31, 2011 @ 1:47 am
Angry Bangs! That kind of epitomises the majority of the birds at Viva Las Vegas when I was there in 2010. Ha!
December 31, 2011 @ 3:29 am
Hahahahaha. Yeah man, I got into country ‘cos of Hank3 being in Superjoint Ritual. I may work for an NGO. I did indeed change my mind about the Dixie Chicks recently. Anything mainstream does certainly suck.
Excellent work. Keep ’em coming
December 31, 2011 @ 4:51 am
Damn.
Reading at Triggerman, it seems that I’m a “Punk/Metalhead Hank3 Country Convert”.
More or Less.
But I always buy guitar before tattoo.
December 31, 2011 @ 5:16 am
My EP doesn’t sound like it was recorded in a toilet stall. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZTWkgg_CSs
December 31, 2011 @ 11:17 am
another bang up job. only thing is i’m saddened to learn jerry garcia didn’t invent blue grass. you’re prolly also gonna tell me he didn’t invent the peddle steel as well. well don’t, ok? it would ruin the rest of the year for me.
December 31, 2011 @ 11:46 am
enjoyed this….funny stuff!
December 31, 2011 @ 11:53 am
Funny stuff, Trig. I would add “The Drunk”. They may also fall into another category, or possess a combo of the other stereotypes, but they’re always drunk at the shows,…always. Not just kind of drunk or buzzed up…..drunk drunk. Real drunk. They can be a good time and funny as hell one moment, and an unwanted annoyance the next. They may want to fight or fuck, but won’t be good at either.
January 1, 2012 @ 12:39 am
Tonight is my first time I am on this site and I found the holy grail of country music opinions and bands I been seeking. I am almost a Hank 3 country convert. I was a heavy metal/rock head most of my life then the last few years I fell in love with Willie, Johnny Cash, Waylon, Merle, David Allen Coe and Hank senior. I hated all new country music, cause I hate trendy poppy music,until I discovered Hank 3 and Shooter Jennings. Perfect for an ex rocker who fell in love with country. Now recently I discovered Bob Wayne and this website. Now I found my perfect neo outlaw country music genre.Fits my style too since I dont look like any other Texas redneck. Thanks again for the website.
January 1, 2012 @ 10:58 am
Roy Acuff, the king of country music?? Are you serious?
January 1, 2012 @ 11:31 am
Roy Acuff is the “King of Country Music”. It’s a fact. That was his handle. Just like Jimmy Martin’s handle was the “King of Bluegrass”. The reason I put that in there is because anybody who truly knows about classic country, would know that Roy was the first to coin that phrase, while many country converts could probably not even tell you one Roy Acuff song.
Now I will tell, in my opinion, Hank Williams should be considered the King of Country, and Bill Monroe the King of Bluegrass. But Roy is the one that rightfully owns the handle.
January 11, 2012 @ 9:11 pm
How about Vernon Dalhart or Jimmie Rodgers they came before Acuff.
January 11, 2012 @ 11:10 pm
I think Jimmie Rodgers is universally recognized as the “father” of country music. Vernon Dalhart was the first widely commercially successful country artist, but it was fairly short lived. “King” doesn’t necessarily mean “first”, and in the case of Roy Acuff, it may not even mean “best”. For sure it is a controversy that Roy has that handle. I guess I was trying to prove the point some don’t even know there’s a controversy.
January 1, 2012 @ 4:29 pm
The “NPR Elitist” is the best one yet.Great stuff!
“They bitch about consumerism and brand loyalty, but every electronic device they own has that cute little Apple on it” ..Also the part about not giving a shit about the Dixie Chicks until they blasted Bush. Sooo true.
January 2, 2012 @ 4:40 pm
Hahaha ! 🙂 xo
New Year Tiddy Bits…
January 3, 2012 @ 7:12 pm
[…] I’m still laughing at the angry bangs. […]
January 6, 2012 @ 6:52 pm
This is priceless! Thanks so much for the chuckle… I needed one!
September 21, 2012 @ 5:44 pm
where is the real working man archetype? the men and women who do hard labor for a living working 9 to 5 every day.
July 5, 2015 @ 7:37 pm
Lol in the case that I only havta work 9 to 5 someday I will consider myself to be on easy street … I think the norm for a hard laborer would be considered 7 to 6 and pry most of a Saturday too… where I’m from lol
March 18, 2013 @ 6:02 pm
The only one I see as missing from these two lists is the “former glam rocker”. Whether it falls on this list or the pop country list depends on whether they’re emulating Mike Ness or not.
March 18, 2013 @ 6:59 pm
I’m the “punk/metal” hank III type. Except I love Hank Snow and Hank Cochran, and I’ve always thought Roy Acuff was the “King of Country”. NOT George Strait, Although I like him too.
November 15, 2013 @ 11:18 am
Haha, I think I have a touch of all of them in me.
November 16, 2014 @ 11:32 am
I was driving home from my gig last night and flipped on the local country station for the 30 minute trip . Every once in a while I like to subject myself to a good long hit of this station to remind myself of how lucky I am to have options . Like , perhaps , another station , my CD’s , my iPod , driving off the Richmond bridge into the ocean . Last night I just about opted for the last one .
It was late and dark and I was so frightened by the stuff they were playing on that station I felt like an orphaned child alone in the world and left to the mercy of the wolves . I was overcome by this helpless feeling that the inmates were , indeed, running the asylum and my mind was in serious danger . Both of me were schizophrenic . Well at least one of me was .
As this station kept cranking out nursery rhyme after nursery rhyme , I kept thinking of my 5th birthday party wearing a holster and a straw cowboy hat ( like the one Trigger is wearing in his photo above ) and playing shoot-em-up with my little cowboy friends . In my head I envisioned the folks at the radio station all wearing these little straw hats and all the singers they played had little straw hats and little guitars and they were pretending they were all cowboys …all trying to sing ” Itsy Bitsy Spider ” and ” The Wheels On The Bus ” louder than the next little cowboy singer until ….well ….until the wheels on the bus came off . I snapped out of my chaotic reverie just as I had crossed the bridge and felt proud of myself for making it over ….again .
All this to say that I feel a debt of gratitude that I can come here and vent when I start to think about the bridge option
November 17, 2014 @ 9:03 am
Wow. Your really understand. You should be my friend.