Old 97's .mp3's
OK, we've got a bunch of album tracks available as .mp3's over on the Discography page, but here's where you'll find our oddball tracks, demos, live cuts, outtakes, and the like, and here's a few we hope you like.

First up are two outtakes from the December 1996 Too Far To Care sessions. "Beer Cans," a.k.a. "Pickin' Up Beer Cans on the Highway," is a cover of an original tune from Dallas' own Homer Henderson, while "No Doubt About It" is a bluegrass Flatt & Scruggs chestnut featuring hand claps, banjo, pedal-steel, and a patented, Murry Hammond lead-vocal.

And even though "Coahuila" was Ken's first singing appearance on a 97's album, he's been cranking out tunes for years. In 1994 his instrumental, "Ken's Polka Thing," appeared on Hitchhike To Rhome," and in 2001 he followed that with an outtake from the Satellite Rides sessions called "Accordion Song (Ken's Polka II)" Sounding like a long-lost Carl Stalling composition, it was proposed for a time during Satellite's production that "Accordion Song" would be sliced and diced into smaller bits, which would have been used as segues between the other tracks on the CD, serving in effect as that album's unifying background music.

"The Bug Song" is Ken's grown-up whack at a kid's song, and while it predates the birth of his own kids by several years, Ken reportedly never performed the song in public before some 2001 acoustic shows he played with Rhett, and later with his own band, Scrap Hotel, during the Old 97's 2002 - 2003 hiatus.

This solo-acoustic demo of "Valium Waltz" was recorded by Rhett Miller, reportedly in 1995, and before finally making it onto Drag It Up, it's been considered for inclusion on the nearly each new Old 97's album, and for the aborted Ranchero Brothers CD. But take a listen and compare this haunting 3-3 time ballad to it's rocked-up and trippier offspring on DIU. This first take shows off the song's Texas singer-songwriter roots, in the tradition of Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, or Robert Earl Keen. But as undeniably lovely as it is, one can imagine it would have been hard to sequence into an Old 97's album in this form. Still, it sure is pretty, and pretty damn neat to finally make this special version available. I hope you enjoy 'em all.

Beer Cans .mp3
No Doubt About It .mp3
Accordion Song (Ken's Polka II) .mp3
The Bug Song .mp3
Valium Waltz (demo) .mp3

Old 97's screensaver

Old 97's wallpaper

"Blame It On Gravity" wallpaper

"Murder or a Heart Attack" wallpaper

Coming soon: more Wallpaper, Buddy Icons, mp3's, Web Banners so you can spread the word and anything else we can think of. Don't be shy... make a suggestion or a submission!

Contact Frank via email: landings.geo at yahoo.com