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Music Review: Blood River by Doop & The Inside Outlaws
Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008 @ 02:25:00 MST by Mitch
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 Back in 2005, Don "Doop" Duprie and Ty Stone founded the first incarnation of The Inside Outlaws, 'a nationwide group of singer/songwriters dedicated to developing new talent through education and networking.' That network led to Stone's relationship with Kid Rock and eventually to led to his being signed to Top Dog /Atlantic Records in 2006.
Now Doop has released the result of his collaborations with Stone and the rest of the Inside Outlaws on their 2007 debut, "Blood River". The disc contains ten songs that vary from down-home country ballads to gritty Detroit rock & roll.
Click "read more" for Mitch's review, links and sound samples.
Blood River by Doop & The Inside Outlaws
Sounds Like:
Country-flavored Kid Rock / Uncle Kracker on some tracks, Bruce Springsteen meets Bruce Hornsby on others.
Good Music For:
Beer-gazing on barstools
Best Moment:
"Let You Bleed"
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Band: Doop & The Inside Outlaws
Release: "Blood River"
Year: 2007
Mixed & Mastered by: Jim Diamond @ Ghetto Recorders, Detroit, MI.
Musicians: Don "Doop" Duprie (lead vocals, guitar), Ty Stone (backing vocals on tracks 1 & 6), Bobby Emmet (organ, piano), Jason Lollio (bass), Dave Shettler (drums & bg vocals), Pete Ballard (pedel steel), Tom Bonner (guitar on track 9), Pat V (drums on track 9), Brett Lucas (lead guitar on tracks 4,6 & 9), Tim Monger (accordion on track 4), Eddie Baranek (guitar on track 5), Jim Diamond (additional bass & guitar), Heather Baker (bg vocals)
review by Mitch Phillips
Bowling For Bandheads
I spent the bulk of my music career as a bad mimic in a bowling-alley bar, most of whose patrons came from the trailer parks across the street and around the corner. They had annoying habits like drunkenly requesting the same song in every set, repeatedly playing the same song on the jukebox, and wandering on stage to blather into the microphone whenever it suited them.
Sad thing was, back then I thought I was hot shit, above mixing with that crowd of beer-swilling hell raisers. Once I matured a bit (which took longer than it should have) I realized the people I entertained for over a decade were really the salt of the earth; hard-working folk who found joy in simple things like beer, darts, pool tables and good, honest music - be it rock, country, or a mixture of both.
Those are precisely the people, I think, who will dig “Blood River” by Doop & The Inside Outlaws. This is working-class music that gets under your fingernails and stays there.
Blood River Boogie
 Don “Doop” Duprie writes good, simple songs about love, loss, revenge and regret that will strike equally at the hearts of the sub-rural rednecks of my youth and urbas plant-rats of Doop's hometown of River Rouge, which he decries on the title track.
I hate the way this town makes me feel
pushes me around just like a wheel
Rollin’ down a long and beat-up road
Hardens up your heart and steals your soul
All I wanna do is stand and deliver
Instead I’m drownin’, I’m drownin’ here in Blood River
(From “Blood River”, Duprie/Stone, © Highland Music Publishing )
That sense of forsakenness dominates these mostly laid-back, acoustic-led, drink-a-beer-and-play-a-game-of-pool-while-you-reflect-on-your-life songs, half of which were co-written and vocally-backed by Inside Outlaw partner and Top Dog/Atlantic recording artist Ty Stone.
Not surprisingly, Doop’s music falls somewhere in the neighborhood of rustbelt-rock & country progenitors Kid Rock and Uncle Kracker, established artists whose voices who aren't as distinctive as they are capable of reaching into the gut of work-a-day, mid-western music fans. In some places Duprie may have reached even further with tracks like "Let You Bleed", a song about a father trying to connect with his son during a crisis.
 Take it from a friend
You can count on me
I can get you through the night
or I can let you be
I've been where you are
I know what you need
I can save your life
Or I can let you bleed
I could let you bleed
So maybe you should look around
Your whole damn world is burning down
And I'm the only one who's left here that (sic) believes
If it were anybody else they'd let you bleed
(From “Let You Bleed", Duprie/Stone, © Highland Music Publishing )
Like his predecessors, it's evident that Duprie is spending time in Nashville where he recently signed a deal with Highland Publishing. The song, “If I Were You, I’d Probably Hate Me Too” sounds as if it came off-the-rack from a demo house on Music Row, but it was actually produced, as was the entire record, by infamous Detroit garage-meister Jim Diamond (White Stripes, Dirtbombs, Gore Gore Girls) who also performs on the record.
While mid-tempo cuts like the opener, “Shoot You Down” and "Blood River" probably have the most crossover appeal for pop audiences, Doop’s sincerity really shines on tracks like “Let You Bleed”, “Tougher On You”, “Without You” and "Again", ballads that tell emotionally penetrating stories about regular people that can be delivered as effectively with an acoustic guitar as an entire band.
Now she grew up on the radio
And he grew up right down the road
She was the best thing that ever happened to him
In and outta' trouble for most his life
He packed a gun and he like to fight
Now he's in a battle that he just can't win
'Cause he left a man for dead on the bar room floor
And all she could say when the sheriff came through the door
How am I gonna make it without you?
I'm not going to make it without you
My whole life has been about you
I'm not going to make it without you
He looked at her and she cried, then they took him away
(From “Without You", Don Duprie, © Highland Music Publishing )
But it’s not all ruminatin’ and reflectin’ here. The Inside Outlaws break up the bottle-gazing with some much-need reverie on a bar-rocker called “Who’s To Say” and a boot-scootin’ tribute to coed crime sprees called “Done ‘em Right” (set right here in Michigan), providing at least two reasons to get off your barstool.
Karmic Justice
Personally I'm done with barstools and beer-gazing; now I take my comfort directly from the music. It’s not that I have anything against the warm embrace of a good beer-buzz or the comaraderie of my common folk, I just find bowling alleys and corner bars a little too depressing in my present circumstances.
You see, Mr. Hot-Shit Bandhead here who thought he was too good to mix with the hoi polloi is writing this review from the humbled anonymity of his single-wide trailer.
Funny thing, karma. Fucking hilarious.
- Mitch
Track By Track
1. Shoot You Down - An abrupt beginning leads to an act of betrayal and a hook that will snag your sub-conscious until you’re singing it in your sleep.
2. Without You - Tear-jerking country ballad of full of bad endings. Keep your tissue handy.
3. Let You Bleed - Gem of a take on fatherly advice. Just beautiful.
4. If I Were You, I’d Probably Hate Me Too - the pedal steel work of Pete Ballard (Deadstring Brothers/The Sights) contrasted with a scorching leads of Brett Lucas (Thornetta Davis) give this country ballad the “Nashville Treatment” via Detroit.
5. Who’s To Say - bar-rocker with a back-peddlin’ chorus that might trip up the dancers, but only long enough to send them charging back into the verse or out on a bed of “hot licks” provided by Sights’ guitarist Eddie Baranek.
6. Blood River - mid-tempo reminder that “you don’t know if you don’t live here” in the post-industrial apocalypse of River Rouge. Bruce Hornsby meets Bruce Springsteen. Great track.
7. Tougher On You - Ballad of regrets replete with pedal steel and cryin’ at The Gold Star. Wyandotte is a real good place for cryin’ these days.
8. Again - The serial-insanity of "Women Who Love Too Much" in ballad form.
9. Done ‘em Right - Great grungy shuffle provided by Tom Bonner (Screamray) punctuated with the rockabilly rippings of Brett Lucas (Thornetta Davis) make for a Michigan-based crime spree that would make Carl Perkins proud. Co-written by Shawn Horvath.
10. No Way To Live - Melancholy nod to the smoke-filled rooms and broken dreams of a working musician. There seems to be at least one of these songs in every indie songwriter’s catalog.
Visit Doop & The Inside Outlaws on MySpace
Buy "Blood River" at CD Baby
Find out more about The Inside Outlaws
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Average Score: 4.66
Votes: 6
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