X-RATED COWBOYS CELEBRATE CD RELEASE
Published: Friday, July 8, 2005
FEATURES - LIFE 06F
By Aaron Beck
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Quinn Fallon knows what you did and who you are.

The songwriter and lead singer of the X-Rated Cowboys keeps about 50 spiral-bound notebooks in his North Side home. Lyrics inspired by many shifts tending bar in Andyman's Treehouse fill the pages.

"There is so much bar culture in the Cowboys' songs,'' Fallon said. "It's definitely seeped its way into my stuff.''

Of the songs on the group's third independent release, a self-titled album of twangy rock to be celebrated tonight in PromoWest Pavilion, "Eight out of the 11 have a bar reference,'' said Fallon, 40.

Producer Dan Baird said: "Quinn's writing now less from a fiction standpoint. I wanted him to call the record Tales From the Barkeep because that's what's going on.''

When Fallon carries an idea out of the bar, he typically paints the stories in wide strokes.

"Specific stories aren't interesting to me,'' he said. "I don't want to write a song about somebody hating his job at Wal-Mart.''

Two decades in the service industry yielded Happy Hour, a composite sketch of the "many people who were just beyond redemption.''

He often tends bar until closing at Andyman's Treehouse, the Northwest Side watering hole he co-owns with Andy "Andyman'' Davis, WWCD (101.1 FM) program director and disc jockey.

Most Cowboys songs come to life at 4 or 5 a.m., when Fallon is winding down at home.

By the time his songs get to the studio, however, they will have been put "through the ringer'' by Cowboys personnel, which this time included Phil Maneri (upright bass), Jim Castoe (tambourine), Watershed bassist Joe Oestreich and full-timers pianist-organist Bob Hite, drummer Doug Wells and guitarists Andy Harrison and Chris Skrobot.

For the follow-up to their 2003 album, Saddest Day of the Year, the Cowboys recorded with Joe Viers at the helm at John Schwab Studios in Columbus.

They again enlisted as producer Baird, the songwriter, singer, guitarist and former leader of the Georgia Satellites ("Keep Your Hands to Yourself").

Harrison said, "Dan is really good at saying, 'That song that we just did was great, but you're not that guy in the song yet.' ''

Working with Baird, Fallon said, taught him to "remove myself from my songs.''

"It's always humbling to work with someone who won't take time to explain anything to you because we're on a deadline,'' Fallon said. " 'Shut up. You're the singer. You sing when I tell you. Thank you for writing the songs. Your work is done.' You do have to remove yourself.''

Baird said: "You can tell the difference of someone getting their back into it. Now Quinn's helping dig that trench.

"He's got some great songs. My favorite is '70s Porn Star.''

On the slightly tongue-in-cheek piece, the narrator imag- ines wearing a shirt unbuttoned to the waist and listening to eight-track tapes while piloting a big black car down Hollywood Boulevard on a Saturday night.

"When I heard the lyrics, I said, 'Quinn, are you kidding me?' '' Harrison said. "But then I thought: 'You know what? It's probably the most honest song Quinn has ever written.' He really does think he would have been good at that job.''

Band members initially refused to play what they considered a novelty song.

"It wasn't exactly a joke,'' Fallon said. "I told them, 'I really do wish I was a '70s porn star.'

"And then we all remembered we're in a band called the X-Rated Cowboys.''

abeck@dispatch.com