Ten Speed
The Beanhouse (ATP Music)
For drinking songs or songs about drinking, there are much better to be found than what’s on The Beanhouse. Austin’s short-lived Schlitz Quarts come to mind. The Gear Daddies are another chart topper in this category, though Ten Speed’s “I Saw My Reflection” is worth a page in the archives of such songs. As for the rest of the album, pinning down the local sixpiece musically is an odd exercise, not because they’re so far-flung across the map — theirs is fairly tame, rustic banjo/mandolin-laden pop — but rather because at various times they sound like a few different bands who don’t sound all that alike. Early on, there are flashes of the Waterboys or even the Wonder Stuff. “Mineral Wells” even has a bit of a V-Roys bend going on, but it’s one of the few moments that Beanhouse sounds earnestly E-Squared. And “Loneliness Is the Only Song I Know” has a poor man’s Gourdsy “Bean Bowl” feel to it, but it, like the rest of the album, doesn’t manage to reach the full-fledged raucousness of Austin’s reigning hicksters. In fact, Beanhouse is never very remarkable, though, in its relatively innocuous and generally agreeable nature, it goes well with a couple of beers.
This article appears in September 8 • 2000.