Not So Loud: An Acoustic Evening With The Bottle Rockets

Recorded over two nights at the now shuttered Lucas Schoolhouse in St. Louis, Missouri, the Bottle Rockets handpick through their admirable catalog and find 13 tunes to turn acoustic. It’s an unusual and surprising move, considering this is a band that loves their electricity and their rhythm section, but classics such as “Gravity Falls” and “Kit Kat Clock ” now allow the listener to focus on the captivating subtlety of the lyrics and the craft of the tunes, while “One of You” and “Perfect Far Away” (that opens with a hilarious story from singer Brian Henneman) are in their natural setting. Their cover of the Sir Douglas Quintet’s “I Don’t Want to Go Home,” again with an inspired rant from Henneman, addresses the group’s obscure roots. (The group released a tribute album, Songs of Sahm, for the much overlooked Quintet leader, in 2001.)  The back-porch feel is a welcomed alternate take on tunes such as the early material, “Kerosene” and the “everybody’s been there” truth of “1000 Dollar Car.”