Album Review: Tejon Street Corner Thieves – Stolen Goods

“Trashgrass” group bends time, sound and genre in new project for the people

Picture a mountainscape. Beneath those mountains lies a cabin—a rusted doorknob, slanted shutters, a creaky porch. On that raggedy old porch lies a rocking chair giving the wood beneath it its signature squeak. Beside it sits a clay-covered bottle of booze labeled XXX. Now you may be wondering what type of music could be playing in this Deliverance-esque scene. It would be the Tejon Street Corner Thieves’ new album, Stolen Goods. By recycling almost-archaic songs with their own flair, this neo-bluegrass group is able to stimulate music history and prove to a new generation the power of old songs.

The album kicks off with a cover of the 19^th-century mountain-gospel song, “Wayfaring Stranger.” A perfect way to first show their “trashgrass” style of bluegrass: rusty-sounding banjos strum above the lamented, slow rhythm of the slight percussion. The song itself gives off feelings of desperation and hard times.

“Crawdad” sees a less “trashy” style of bluegrass and opts for a more traditional version. By “traditional bluegrass,” it’s meant that “Crawdad” is an up-tempo track consisting of the five classic instruments most utilized by bluegrass groups—the banjo, guitar, mandolin, fiddle and bass. Complete with callbacks, repeating gospel-style melodies and a consistent kick drum, this song offers fun and a sense of homeyness. It also includes a fiddle solo at the end if that’s your kind of chaos.

The third track on the project, “Deal Rag,” represents its most popular song in terms of streams. Another up-tempo song, this one directly contrasts “Wayfaring Stranger” in its message. In the first of the two, the “stranger” wanders looking for something to attach himself to. In “Deal Rag,” however, he says that “wherever I hang my hat is home, sweet home to me.”

Halfway through the album, people receive their first explicit song in “Down By The Bay.” Beginning with disordered humming vaguely reminiscent of the melody, the jam band nature of the Tejon Street Corner Thieves comes to life. It then enters into another classic bluegrass sound, but as a song meant for children. Repeating “down by the bay” with new information about the situation coming at each chorus, it is interspersed by laughs and whoops, creating the lively atmosphere that children and adults both would enjoy.

“Greasy Coat” again shows the “trash” in the bluegrass. Convoluted and complex instrumentation of the classic bluegrass noises, each instrument clashes with the next in a dense yet animated manner. With this comes a surprise in that the first lines of the song are “I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t wear no greasy coat—I don’t cuss, I don’t chew, I don’t like them boys in blue.” Contradictions both musically and lyrically make this particular track highly creative and exciting to hear.

“1,2,3,4, have you ever taken a trail from the Mobile line?” leads us into “Mobile Line.” The most recent cover on this project, the track feels this way. Instead of a Bill Monroe type of bluegrass, people are met—in this song—with a more contemporary version more similar to Old Crow Medicine Show. However, the recency of covers doesn’t last long with the next track, “Rollin’ In My Sweet Baby’s Arms,” a cover of a Buck Owens classic. The Tejon Street Corner Thieves take this Owens/Haggard Bakersfield sound and style their own way, complete with peppering banjos, frantic fiddles and grinding basslines.

“Sugar Hill” represents the last and best song on the album. “You wanna get your eyes blacked out, you wanna get your fill, you wanna get your head chopped off, go-to sugar hill.” Again, it seems as if they have taken a children’s song and aged it to its audience. Another song with callbacks and fun hooks, this track is a strong one.

Oftentimes, cover albums have two outcomes. The first outcome being that the music is fine, but nothing has been changed. The second outcome is that the music is different, but not in a way that changed the listeners’ experience or pushed music forward in any way. Neither of these outcomes is true when it comes to Stolen Goods. Tejon Street Corner Thieves found a way to take old songs that have been recycled time and time again and turn them into something that can cross over genres, ages and music tastes.