In 2002 I started the cycle again looking for songs about Sacramento. If offbeat Christmas music was readily available, so too should be songs about this quirky town. Sure enough, I managed to pull out a dozen or so, both from free sources such as MP3.com and also "shadow" sources. Some of these songs went out in Xmas 2003's production, "Sacramento: Its A Riot!"

Citywide	sample
Artist: Filibuster	Album: The Means
If I were in a foreign country and somebody said "pull out a CD that best represented your town," I'd yank out a Filibuster CD out of my bag. Not that they were mindblowingly good, but because they well represented the Sacramento Ethic for a time. A number of their tracks are born and bred on the streets of Sacramento -- "McKinley Park", "Sutter's Fort" -- While a number of their songs could take place anywhere, they only fit just right here in the Capitol City. "Citywide" is a rambling paean to Sacramento on the Sactolovefest album "The Means", Filibuster's sophomore disk and first album since they'd started showing signs of regional prominence. Their first album "The New Ruler & King" was the band at its fattest, but by this album they'd lost all the horn line save for a Jason Boggs on alto sax and Todd Kelly on trumpet, added Rob Rossi on turntables (and he'd matured to the point he was a useful band member). This was probably the best mix of big-sound Filibuster on a reasonable budget. This track brings in Tatiana from the ridiculously popular Daisy Spot to lay down her unique, soulful vocals, making this track. Filibuster always properly represented Sacramento both as artists from this fair town and artists. Other killer tracks with in-town perspective are Deadly Hi-Fi's "Rat Pack", and The New Ruler & The King's "Come Get Your Licks."

Sacramento & Polk	sample
Artist: Alejandro Escovedo	Album: Bourbonitis Blues
When you used to drag the seas of peer-to-peer file exchanges, sometimes you would get partial matches like this. "Sacramento & Polk" isn't about Sacramento at all, but more about a broke-down lifestyle in San Francisco. I was quite pleased to find that he plays the Palms every once in a while because he's the kind of sound that would make that place rattle just right. A great hard-driving tale that is pushed from behind by some grinding beats and a sweet backup behind him (could that be Amy Farris in the background or would that just make me happiest?) San Francisco is a great town, but its not without its less pretty sides, covered excellently in this song.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: The Cuf	Album: I Love This Game
The closest Sacramento ever came to a good hardcore hiphop crew in Sacramento was The Cuf. With N8 the GR8 and Crush trading licks on "Sacramento", not only is a it a solid chronicle of a slice of time in Sacramento's history but also a interesting cross-section of what rap sounds like done in the native Sacramentan dialect.

Bus To Sacramento	sample
Artist: Creeping Time	Album: Down That Muddy Road
While not exactly Sacramento-rific, I think few other songs capture the horror of heading across the deathly middle part of the state, the nowhere land between here and Bakersfield, Bakersfield to LA. There is joy along the interstate, but also much monotony. Getting into that sort of ringing road mentality is perhaps the best niche for jam bands and its probably one of the best I've heard out of Seattle's Creeping Time. It's pure hemprock, but pretty harmless and enjoyable. A positive note found along the highway, a good little road time.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: Martin Lauer	Album: Das Waren Schlager
I don't know what it is about the German and Sacramento but they are absolutely fucking crazy for us. Go figure. This one mentions, in English, the "Sacramento River" and little else I can make out. I wish the Germans would be as fastidious about their lyric transcription as we are so I good get a good Babelfish translation. Certainly the most jovial of all the German-language tracks.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: Heavenly	Album: Decline And Fall Of Heavenly
A little ambient surf-rock styling on this one, an instrumental so we have no idea what they really think of Sacramento, save for the fact that there's a crashing beer bottle right about the middle of this one. I don't know that the sound really says "Sacramento" unless you happen to be sitting in a boat in the middle of the Delta, but its a happy little ditty.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: MOSS	Album: Unknown
Kind of low-fi Circle Jerks with semi-generic guitar riffs, MOSS The song seems preachy, but how? Like other outsiders, San Francisco's MOSS seems to have some sense of it, but no real clue about the nature of Sacramento and it comes out all gibberish.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: Milhouse	Album: Modern Problems
Are they singing about Sacramento? Its hard so hard to tell over all the screaming. I think its some Deftones thing or something. I'm sure the social commentary would be biting if you could understand it.

Sacramento	sample
Artist: Middle of the Road, others	Album: Sacramento
"There's something about the weather//that everybody loves//they call it the Indian Spring of Sacramento" (Full Lyrics). No sooner than we get through the first line we know this summery song is a lie. Indian Spring? What is this shit? Middle Of The Road were a mid-ground pop group during the 60s-70s with a number of pan-Europe hits, though this seems to be their largest. What's inexplicable out this is that lead singer Sally Carr's vocals and lyrics sound strangely unlike those of a hairdresser from Lanarkshire, Scotland but more from Dresden, Germany or something. German singer Gitte did a cover of this song called "Der Mann Aus Sacramento" ("The Man From Sacramento" but as a non-German speaker I'm hard-pressed. Gitte has a larger, brassier and undoubtedly did that weird Euro doublestep as she rocked this song out. Golden throated German singer Roy Black also does a cover in only marginally accented English. His version adds an indeterminate number of background singers "baa baa baa baaaing" in the background along with a really gassy sounding horn section. Black looks a bit like Englebert Humperdink, that same sort of big-head, never ages cheese. Black was heavy German top-40 in the early 70s, during the same time Middle of the Road was hitting it big with "Sacramento".

Sacramento	sample
Artist: Gary Usher	Album: The Honeys Collection
I used to think that Middle of the Road's "Sacramento" was the worst song ever written about this town, but Gary Usher's version has got to be the worst one. I can't imagine anyone being able to top it without, like, really trying. Usher apparently co-wrote some tunes with the Beach Boy's Brian Wilson including, amazingly, this one. Perhaps this was while Brian was exploring his Sandbox period. This tune was poised for a launch on June 1, 1964, just in time to make the summer rotation with "That's Just The Way I Feel" on the B-side. Despite rubbing up against greatness, Usher falls flat on this track showing poor judgment in casting two whiskey-throated barmaids into the mix singing harmony. I've got no discography for them, so I can only imagine. The story has our protagonist brokenhearted and heading west from someplace better I'd imagine, headed to the "end of the line, Sacramento." This is, of course, patent nonsense. Nothing ends here, they just pass through. Our hero finds some other girl who decided the best way to deal with her troubles was to hitch a train, they hit it off and then they get freaky in "the caboose". I don't know if they had cabooses back in 1964 or if they'd been phased out by then, or if this is perhaps a metaphor of some sort. In the end our hero has won the girl and they've decided to settle in Sacramento sight unseen. This is clear indication why bounce-back relationships are A Bad Idea.

On The Banks of Sacramento	sample
Artist: Lagan English/Lale Anderson.	Album: Treasury of American Folk Music/Unknown
I have two versions of this ditty. Lagan English's is probably the most authentically true. Its accompanied by a banjo and two-part harmony, a simple miner-style tune. Lale Anderson's is a lush, band-accompanied performance that makes you envision fishnets, bustiers and lots of feather spangle: a BIG budget hills production. If you ever saw those corny shows at Knott's Berry Farm you've pretty much got hill-style entertainment pegged. Maybe you live hill-style entertainment -- hell, I used to for a while. Its a good beat. Anyway, this is not about that. This is about these two tracks and whether I can ever get proper samples so you can decide once and for all; are you a Lagan English person or a Lale Anderson person? I'll tell you what, I'll mash 'em up, since the chorus is the same but the lyrics are completely different. There's a big-pop version of the Lale Anderson version done by Howard Carpenter complete with gassy horn line, but unfortunately I'd already made the mashup so you're tough-shit out on this one. Its a lot more gay-positive is all I've got to say.

In Sacramento	sample
Artist: GG Anderson	Album: "Album 100"
Whenever I hear this particular song I'm always imagine a guy standing upon a little stage in some medium-sized sports stadium with his band of helpful crooners standing around him all the while sweeping pans of the stadium are made. For those of you who have lived in or visited Europe, such a spectacle will be immediately understandable. Most American's only experience with EuroTrash TV is during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, so YMMV. I believe GG Anderson is German, as is his song -- I can only pull out something about "Out on Highway Number One" which is nowhere near Sacramento, so I must therefore assume that he's talking about "Out on Highway Number One we made a fateful decision to turn eastbound out of Bodega and somehow managed to arrive here on this ungodly plane", 'cause otherwise I don't know how it fits. Popadelic, the hook will get caught in your head, lots of la-las, I give it an eight.

Samples provided here under fair-use guidelines: purposes of critical review. Sampled material remains material copyright of original copyright holders.