White Cowbell Oklahoma

By Garth Paulson

In my completely objective and unbiased opinion, ZZ Top was funny at best and Kid Rock will always be terrible. So what happens when you mix these two sources? You get White Cowbell Oklahoma, a Toronto-based band that plays southern-fried boogie rock and has built quite a reputation for intense live shows filled with zany antics.


Unfortunately, their apparent onstage bravado does not translate well onto a studio album. The terribleness of Kid Rock is all over Cencerro Blanco, while the involuntary humor of ZZ Top is sadly missing.


The music is sometimes kind of fun in a guilty pleasure sort of way, it’s the lyrics that are this album’s downfall. Four themes are addressed on Cencerro Blanco: drugs, boobs, cowbells and oral sex.


As if this wasn’t bad enough, White Cowbell Oklahoma seems to have a strange fetish for repetition, which allows the listener the pleasure of hearing such classic lines as “South, go down south, in your mouth” and “Let me slop my biscuit in your gravy” again and again to the point where the thought of jabbing Q-tips through your ear drums seems like an almost soothing option.


This is the kind of album I can only hope lives a short, unhappy life in the bottom of bargain bins across Canada.