Rattlesnake Milk
Austin, Texas
Music
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Outlaw howls of the open road and dangerous women. Questions screamed out to God and bartenders on the the lonely Texas highway. It's nighttime and the ember from a Marlboro Red fighting against the dry air outside is the only light other than high beams that’ve been stretching across the desert asphalt for six hours now.
Psychedelic Country. Garage Punk. Alt Western. The Cramps smashing whiskey bottle with Willie Nelson. Try to put Rattlesnake Milk in a box and they melt out. Raw and unpolished, the type of head downers that get offered glamour and smirk at it.
Throughout the haunts of West Texas in the early 2010’s Rattlesnake Milk starts earning themselves a cult following. Unannounced shows. Dimmed-to-the-minimum-spotlight. A taste for anonymity. And, upholding the misfit, out in left field approach to society: Rattlesnake Milk releases a 10 song project in 2012 only available on cassette: Snake Rattle and Roll. Tracks titled Highway Home, Broke Soul, Death, Sunset Rider, Pain Hurt Sorrow and Baby tears give the listeners a peak inside the mind of a full hearted rambler, conscious enough to see the wrongs in the world and close to being too far outside to sweat it. The lyrics main character opts for the expanse, dark corridors and even the vocals are hidden beneath haunting instrumentals.
Snake Rattle and Roll (2012) Album Cassette Album Cover
Move forward a half decade. Make some personnel changes. Start writing as a band. Move through Tx. Keep the fire lit. Add fuel to it. Drop the self titled album Rattlesnake Milk. Sound On Tap has a good video with the band. They’re playing this album. Live. Talking about working together. 3 shows a week to pay for recording. Raw and unplugged. Ups and Downs. The word is, Scandinavians fawn over Rattlesnake Milk…Listen on Youtube.
Rattlesnake Milk (2020) Album Cover
“And I could feel that bullet rip through the flesh and bone … yeah … Nothing there, I was laying there, asking for the Lord to help me to make it home.”
- Abernathy, Rattlesnake Milk,
The Holy pleads shoot up with electricity as the band starts in on midnight lamentations from a neon lit motel. Unrefined hopefulness, faithful without the slick combover of a squeaky clean church goer. John The Baptist with a .45 in his leather belt, cigarette hole in his camel hair shirt. Lyrics of Men, Women who are alone in this world and move onward, further into the outskirts. Absurdist journeyman only opening the door to garb the devil by his long red hand, putting the pedal to the floor. Curious of sin, saints with silver tongues. These ramblers, the outcast who hope the Blues will tire out if they run fast enough. Howling at the moon in sweet release of freedom. Open road for eternity vs 25-to-life if the Blues do catch up. Put all your money on red and make sure the car’s running.
Chicken Fried Snake (2022) Album Cover
Art by Jacob Gardner
And we’re back. High speed. In the rearview I see cops. - She’s on the road. She got high early in the morning. Drink some whiskey. Peel into a dusty parking lot. Do a little make up. She’s wearing rhinestone silver on her waist, everyone in the bar’s itchin’ for a taste.
Add some guitar that sounds like pure copper slipping through honey. The type that hit deep in your ears and hangs around for a bit.
She was gone. Wind blowing in her hair. Bus driver talking, nobody’s listening, 18 wheeler fell asleep at the wheel. Mama gettin’ high, flyin’ up to heaven feel her body layin’ on the road… She was on the road….
And this full-grit highway story titled On The Road is how Rattlesnake Milks brings us into their newest album, Chicken Fried Snake. Kerouac would smile at how the band paints that old story: The Vast Openness, Our Place In It, and like Kerouac, Least Moon, all other dreamers inspired by the American Highway, Rattlesnake Milk is humbled enough by the journey to know a final answer, message, end-all-the-hunting-statement is never found and that’s the point.
Not all of the band’s search is a race to the finish line. That approach is speed, quick, toe the line because you may get an answer sooner than if you played it safe. The foot on the gas pedal slows down to leave room for longing with songs such as Die Young: featuring a battle between nature and emotion for the spotlight. A fire burns… Deep canyons… Thunderstorms pour…Crying when the memories… Distant coyote howlin’… One long eternal kiss from Heaven’s broken love…
Rattlesnake Milk has Texas desert range. Songs that makes you want to break glass and burn it all down to one’s that make you want to pause, stare at the dirt for a while, callin’ out to Heaven “won’t you help me forget my lover’s smile.” Stretching from an anxious hunt to a lonesome memory: even the bands words take us for a ride across the country. Before we even know it we’ve gone up to Dallas, down to Houston, saw her in Knoxville, heard about a dealer in Durango, picked up a lizard in Louisiana, pushed the rig to Oklahoma, all before finally meet a tweaker in the Badlands.
For best listening experience:
don’t sleep, let a subtle layer of exhaustion come to you, at Sunset the second day get in the car, roll the window down, press play, pick one of the four directions, don’t look at anything but the road ahead: no signs, clocks, phones. Go until the album ends.
RATTLESNAKE MILK was added to THE ART HOUSE January 2023