One Track Mind

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At its core “Skinny Cow Blues” is a teenage pick up song that could have been plucked from Richard Linklater’s classic Dazed and Confused. You can almost hear Matthew McConaughey’s character saying, “You’ve got a nice last name / ask me to say it again / in the car.”

Instead it was written by David Dewese and Jerry James, two guys who call Texas and Nashville home, and for “Skinny Cow Blues,” geography is destiny. With pacing that is reminiscent of Pavement’s twangy “Gold Soundz,” the song uses piano and layered background vocals to soften the scratchy distortion of the lead vocals. The artful balance of acoustic melody and fuzzed-out electric guitar lines build tension as “Skinny Cow Blues” reaches its coda.

Dewese and James christened themselves The Foxymorons back in the mid-1990s when the two friends started making music together. The duo’s fourth long player, Bible Stories, will be released August 24th by Philadelphia label Heatstroke Records.