People who spent the 1990s complaining that "real" country didn't exist anymore ("they just don't make 'em like they use to") had a point to a certain degree. But they also surely never heard the Ghost Rockets, straight out of the backwoods of Hoboken, NJ. Admittedly, they would have had to search pretty hard to get hold of the independently released Bootlegs, since it was rejected by every label, major and minor, owing no doubt to its uncategorizable eccentricities. Nevertheless, it is the first full-fledged effort by the combo and is a beyond-brilliant assemblage of tracks, no surprise to those already privy to the Ghost Rockets brand of magic via the bushels of band tracks contributed to compilations, live performances, and, yes, unauthorized bootlegs of the band. The album was literally completed to circumvent the latter. It contains some of the band's early Spatula Ranch-recorded demos, but the majority was rush-recorded in a single weekend. It is a testament to the band's greatness that you can never figure out which is which. Every song is praiseworthy. The album is honest-to-goodness, dirt-in-your-eye Nashville country & bluegrass -- the kind that existed before designer ten-gallon hats were all the rage. You can almost hear the flies buzzing around the cow's tail, the beer percolating in the cooler by the water pump. The band touches on Tex-Mex (This Girl of Mine), cowboy Byrds (My Guilty Pleasure, on which Buddy Woodward invokes Roger McGuinn's ghost town of a warble), walking blues (Hard to Get), and even a darn-near space rock instrumental (Juliet) courtesy of Bob Hoffnar's warped pedal-steel runs. Bootlegs is heaviest, though, on the bluegrass side of the barn dance. The album turns out bluegrass that has the heebie-jeebies (Comin' Up for Air), resurrects prime Flatt Scruggs pickin' (New White House Blues), and features probably the most jovial, good-natured hangin'-from-a-noose tune ever in Family Tree. You cannot better couplets like "They showed me the family heirloom/It takes 12-gauge shells." But it is also more than its inspirations. The beauty of the music is that it twists convention inside out. The Ghost Rockets love and know traditional roots music so thoroughly that they are free to stretch, have fun with, and even disregard the formula as it suits their purpose, thereby finding entirely new, revelatory pathways in the music. In a perfect world, the Grand Ole Opry would be torn down and the rebuilt to spec -- just to accommodate the band. Bootlegs is no guilty pleasure, it is the genuine article, some kind of genius new beginning for country and bluegrass music. ~ Stanton Swihart, Rovi

1		Under the Table
2		This Girl of Mine
3		My Guilty Pleasure
4		Family Tree
5		Comin' Up for Air
6		New White House Blues
7		Juliet
8		Hard to Get
9		Queen of Hearts
10		Fallen Angel
11		Another Lotto Winner