the Salty Dogs

The Salty Dogs now have an additional site carried via ReverbNation. You will be able to click over to find relavant information including Press, Shows, Videos, Tunes, etc. It's basically more Internet clutter. If you care to stop over, you can listen to 8 tracks that sample the last 3 albums.

Many thanks to everyone that came out to the release and bought the new album. You have been very gracious with all your kind words and most of all your presence. If you couldn't make it, we hope you can very soon. The new album was released yesterday. If you haven't picked up the new album, you still can. You can visit Max, The Salty link or visit your favorite digital outlet.

Brand New Reason has received some nice words from the Little Rock Press (Sync Weekly, Arkansas Times, Arkansas Dem/Gaz) and most recently the nice folks at Country Standard Time. You can read all of the reviews in their entirety in the press section of the website. Be checking the website for new dates to be added to the calendar. Up next, Brad will be playing a solo show with local singer/songwriter Amy Garland at Capi's in West Little Rock on Friday, February 5th. If you haven't heard Amy perform, you will be in for a treat. Amy has also started a new local radio program on KABF 88.3 F.M. Backroads is on the air each Friday evening beginning at 5:30 P.M. Tune in, you can stream online!

On their fourth release, Little Rock, Ark.'s The Salty Dogs deliver a fine disc incorporating many roots styles. The lead-off Rock and Roll Will Never Stay bounces along to a breezy electric piano and guitar-fueled groove that, by its very existence, disproves the assertion made by the song's title and serves as a rebuttal to the preacher who delivers a sermon against the musical genre in question.

The opening notes of Knock 3X borrow heavily from T-Rex's Bang a Gong before unleashing a muscular guitar riff that would fit nicely on any Reckless Kelly album. It helps that Williams' voice can bear a strong resemblance to Kelly's Willy Braun. Second Chance and Old Folks Home take a more traditional country turn and recall the glory days of Bakersfield. On their cover of Chuck Berry's Nadine, the Dogs show they are more than capable of pulling off an all-out guitar rock strut.

They prove they can handle the quieter moments as well with the windswept western blues of Another Day in a Small Town. Lead singer Brad Williams perfectly captures the helpless feeling of living in a small town that is too small to hold you down, but seemingly too large to escape With only 8 tracks and just over 32 minutes of music, you might wish the Dogs had fleshed this one out with a few more tracks. Despite its brevity, however, this provides plenty of reasons to give a listen. -Nelson Gullett

The Salty Dogs - Brand New Reason -Max Recordings
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While they're easy enough to categorize as retro (if not regressive)country rockers, chief singer-songwriter Brad Williams has a warm, sly and supple voice that travels like a Terrence Malick camera through the local badlands, threading through familiar kudzu-claimed mansion and shotgun shacks, through emptied town squares and down dirt roads. If there's nothing novel about the song structures, which feature concrete-poured foundations courtesy of the rhythm section of bassist Brent LaBeau and drummer Bart Angel, but Williams's wistful lyrics and subtle phrasings evoke a post-gothic small town South, while guitarist Nick Devlin haunts the proceedings like an electrified Boo Radley, wielding his staccato Stratocaster like a cattle prod, showing off buzzy snatches of T. Rex. Call them 21st Century Country Boys. Don't miss their cover of Chuck Berry's "Nadine," which features the band's best Rockpile impression (and Devlin's off-hand vocal); the Buck Owensy plaint of "Second Chance" or the moment in "Words May Talk" when Stephen Winter's piano shows up in solidarity. - Philip Martin (Arkansas Democrat/Gazette)

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Brad Williams might have the most iconic voice in local music. Rangy and rarely onstage without a cowboy hat, the Salty Dogs front man sings in the kind of easy twang that comes from growing up in Marked Tree, but he tempers it with a big helping of Southern soul (you could imagine Williams doing right by a Dan Penn song). Williams and the Dogs - Brent LaBeau (bass), Bart Angel (drums), Nick Devlin (guitar) -often get pegged as "new traditionalists" or "honky-tonk revivalists," which to these ears is just another way of saying country music that lasts. On Saturday, the band celebrates the release of its fourth album and first on Max Recordings, "Brand New Reason." It's full of hot guitar licks, organ workouts and clever lyrics. Lindsey Millar

Friday- Brad will be stopping by Amy and Deb's new radio show, Backroads, for a little while on Friday. Tune in on Friday at 5:30 P.M. on KABF 88.3 F.M. He'll be playing some tunes and bringing a few tunes to spin as well.

Brad will also be paying tribute to Wayne Raney at the Governor's Mansion at the Oxford American Magazine shindig Friday evening. After being born in Wolf Bayou, Arkansas, Wayne became a mainstay in Little Rock radio and released some really great tunes.

Saturday- The Salty Dogs album release show with special guests Go Fast at the Whitewater Tavern/Little Rock, AR - 10 P.M.

*****There is a link available through Max Recordings if you would like to contribute to Haiti Relief efforts*****

My wife keeps wanting to talk to me while she's having sex.

She calls me at all hours of the night.

-Rodney Dangerfield