Hasil Adkins ‎- What The Hell Was I Thinking LP

Fat Possum Records Legend has it that, upon hearing Hank Williams for the first time (while still a child), Hasil Adkins thought the country legend was playing all the instruments himself. It's precisely this miscalculation that convinced Adkins to try such a thing on his own. Since his debut in the 1950s, he has performed mostly as a one-man band, but unfortunately (as this album attests) the sheer novelty of the approach cannot always support the music -- not for any great length of time anyway. What the Hell Was I Thinking? begins fine enough with the losers-always-win sentiments of "Your Memories," and a great first line: "Your memories, they come to see me/'cause they love me/your memories." Adkins' backing (guitar almost in tune, drummer nodding off) has more in common with the bare-bones indie-rock of Beat Happening or the loosest recordings of early Palace than the tradition that produced him. Strumming fractured guitar chords while keeping the beat with some extra appendage on