Adult Rodeo
The Kissyface (Shimmy-Disc)
Performing live, Adult Rodeo come off as an admirable blend of the Meat Purveyors and Three Day Stubble, balancing a love for twang with an affinity for making goofy faces. That and singer Stephanie Mankins’ disarmingly hickey voice would seem to make them prime candidates for producer Kramer’s eclectic Shimmy-Disc label, but it’s difficult to say the band benefits much from making their home there. All the Kramer touches are here — false starts, meandering half-songs, minute-long patches of shrill, piercing bleeps — and while some bands are enhanced by such treatments, Adult Rodeo’s somewhat fragile countryish melodies seem to be more accurately buried by them. And yet, on nearly half of the album’s 23 tracks where they are able to complete a musical thought, like the jangly “Empty Space” or the medley “Redwood County/Death and Eternal Life,” Adult Rodeo makes odd, pleasurable, and often foot-tapping music. Those familiar with the output of Shimmy-Disc and similar labels will know what they’re getting into; less adventurous listeners will more likely find themselves waiting for the next Livestock Show.
This article appears in October 8 • 1999.