Alice Texas "For the Horses"

Alice Texas Sad Days CD (Fargo Records, 2005)

I found Alice Texas's debut album, Gold, sitting in a free bin, feeling worthless and crying quietly to itself. The poor thing wasn't even in a jewel case, just a cheap plastic bag. I felt so bad for it that I promptly took it home and gave it a warm meal. I'm nice that way . . . sometimes. It turned out Alice Texas was the name of the band but the name of the leader-vocalist-guitarist-sultry-lady-in-the-picture-on-the-back-cover is Alice Schneider. Nothing against the name but Alice Texas honestly does make for a better band name. It also makes for a good city name, as they found out when some residents of Alice, Texas were a bit miffed that searches for info on the town were turning up links to the band instead. Oops. As probably isn't a surprise, the music inside turned out to be Southern Gothic, blues-inflected rock. Alice has a unique voice, and she's quite the little songwriter. I can say that because I saw them perform a little over five years ago in a neat club in Brooklyn called Galapagos. At that performance, it was hard to miss that Alice was diminutive; I'd imagine that is still the case. Today's selection, however, is from the difficult second album . . . except it's not difficult at all and t'ain't no sophomore slump, neither. I bought it and was quite happy to do so! This time around, Alice got signed to Fargo Records in France, of all places. When I saw them back in 2005, they played some new stuff that was killer. Here's hoping there's, at the very least, a third album one day.