A Few Road Trip Records You Should Check Out
Volume 6 | June 2025: Sam & I bring some underrated sounds along for the ride.
Good morning!
Today Sam Colt and I are each sharing a few of our favorite road trip records.
Welcome to the sixth installment of our (not so) new series! For those of you who may have missed previous editions, here’s a bit of context:
In this monthly series, Sam Colt and I will each share our picks for artists and/or titles that haven't received their due. You'll recognize Sam's name from our On Repeat and Friends Best of Series, and also our Top 100 of all-time series last fall. These posts will adopt the latter's format; I will make my case for my three picks and my reaction to Sam's. Sam's page will do the reverse.
In the inaugural post, we noted that successive editions would narrow things down slightly. Maybe a specific genre…maybe a specific era…maybe a specific…well, who knows!
No Triptik, no problem! This month, we're each making a case for a few underrated road trip records.
When you're done here, remember to check out Sam’s take at This Is a Newsletter!
Let's get to it!
KA—
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
At one point in the early to mid-90s, a friend asked me to fly down to Dallas and help her move back to Portland. The fact that I was able to say yes right away should tell you all you need to know about what I was doing (or not doing) at that point in my life. It was a mix of good music and bad decisions, one of which was winging all of her maps out the window. I had very much bought into the idea that any trip should evolve organically- you know, see where the day takes you. This is easy to do when you're not employed and have crashed out of school. Not so much when you just want to get back home and start your new job. Lesson learned.
If you ever doubt that America is a massive place, driving across Texas will fix that. It still boggles my mind that we could leave the Dallas area around dawn, drive all day, and by sunset, still hadn't left the state. And as we burned daylight burning up the miles, interspersed between swap shop, the sorts of local insurance ads that you can only find on the AM dial, and football, we listened to quite a bit of the "little ol band from Texas."
In our Top 100 series last year, I slotted Tres Hombres in at #53, writing:
ZZ Top’s brand of rock and blues is not something you listen to quietly. Nor in the small hours of the night (unless the party’s still going). It’s not melancholy; it’s celebratory. You don’t listen in a Prius- that’s a square peg in a round hole.
It feels like it only works in something with a V8. Their kind of music is not something you play to get over a breakup- it’s the soundtrack to adventure.
It’s the sound of being out on the water with friends. In this universe, it’s always sunny, usually in Texas or points south- hell, even Jesus left Chicago.
Always just a little randy and always dependable. The dirty jokes always come with a wink and smile.
This is the sort of mesquite-flavored rock that sounds best blaring from an AM radio as you barrel across the desert southwest. Nothing embodies this better than “Move Me on Down the Line.” Billy Gibbons probably doesn't see himself as a modern-day philosopher, but I've always seen this verse as a mesquite-flavored take on the “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf” mantra.
I tell you, boy, every time
The feelin’ sure is fine.
Just move me on down the line,
Just move me on down the line.
They're natives, of course, but not everyone can make a sound that evokes their home state the way they do. Maybe the Beach Boys and California, but even that's just for the southern half of the state. With ZZ Top, you could be in El Paso, Amarillo, or Plano - it doesn't matter; the sound fits. And it fits on any road trip, really. We listened to this last week while in Michigan, of all places. As I noted earlier, it's the soundtrack to adventure.
May you all have sunny skies, a straight road, and a lead foot.
Sam’s pick and my take: Amen Dunes- Freedom
Until about a week ago, I'd never heard of this album--or at least I didn't think so. My initial surprise came from seeing that one of the tracks, "Believe," is marked as one of my "liked" songs on Spotify. Who knew? Also, why did no one tell me about this record?! The other was just how much of an easy-going, languid groove this record sits in. The lyrics may tell another story, but the music does not. Don't believe me? Cue up "Time" and imagine yourself chasing the sunset on a road that seemingly never ends.
John Hiatt-Slow Turning
I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: everyone should take a road trip at some point. Few things are more educational than getting in a car and hitting the open road.
The recipe for a successful journey:
Throw your map out the window.
Stick to Blue Highways whenever possible.
Listen to AM radio for most of the trip (where the “real” America can be found), and work in some John Hiatt wherever possible.
Optional: When your friend swears he knows a shortcut through the Dakotas that adds several hours to the trip, take it in stride — that’s also part of the adventure.
In the late 1990s, I briefly lived in Memphis, Tennessee. I didn't really know anyone there and didn't have much to do. So I defaulted to what I did know - I would drive south (heh) into the Delta and see what I could find. The parameters were pretty loose - I might block 3-4 hours of total time, and once I hit the halfway mark, I would work out how to get back—no easy feat in the pre-GPS era. I listened to some blues on these trips, but I listened to a lot of John Hiatt, and specifically this record. Anytime I hear one of these tracks, I'm instantly transported to backroads outside of places like Natchez, MS, if only for a split second.
My road trips used to involve a half-crushed pack of Parliaments on the dash, a Case Logic CD holder on the front seat, and no maps.
These days, the cigarettes are long gone; an aux cord replaced the CD binder, and the back seat was home to a pair of car seats for a while. Later, my car was full of soccer cleats and Subway wrappers. Then, one kid got his own car. Now both own one. Time flies.
But John’s still here wailin’ away, sounding better than ever— even when we haven’t left the parking lot.
Sam’s pick and my take: Air- Moon Safari
Once my time in Memphis was done, it was time to drive home to Portland. I decided that we should make this run nonstop, if possible. Why? At the time, I worked under a collective bargaining agreement that guaranteed five paid days to move. My rationale was that if we timed it right and lined everything up with my days off, this speed run could mean getting a paid week off. In hindsight, this was absurd, but as I've said, I was really good at making bad decisions. Also, my car had no heat at the time, but that's a story for another day.
That aside, the trip itself was incredible. The Ozarks are amazing, Kansas City is cool, and the Sunflower Express is, well, it's easy to drive (especially since you don't really ever need to steer). America is truly a good lookin' piece of real estate.
Now close to home, we were on the backside of the clock and on about hour 30. I'd be surprised if I'd had 90 minutes of sleep. At any rate, Art Bell's show pops on, and man was that the wrong thing to be listening to in the middle of nowhere! If I wasn't already delirious when the show came on, I sure was in short order. All of that to say that Moon Safari nails that surreal mood and would've been a much better choice. The sounds and textures of the album are the perfect accompaniment to those times when the sky is overflowing with starlight and your face is full of the glow from the instrument panel.
Rose City Band- Summerlong
The first airline I worked for was a commuter carrier. We flew small airplanes and got small paychecks. I think the most I ever made there was something like $7.87/hr. Luckily, I fell into a side hustle before any of us knew what that term meant. Avis occasionally needed cars moved back and forth between Portland and Redmond. And they would pay us to do it. I had friends who worked in Redmond, so I would fly over and drive back (or vice versa).
Summerlong feels like those drives; it feels like sitting on the shore of Detroit Lake, watching the sun make the water sparkle. It feels like standing on top of Smith Rock, taking the sort of pictures that make parents shudder. It feels like the Old Redmond Hotel, the cheap beers we used to down, and the dive bars that dotted the area before new money blurred the line between it and sister city Bend.
It evokes the mountains in the rearview mirror and the high desert you're facing— and the impossibly hot temps in places like Madras. Why was it always so much hotter there, anyway? Good question, and one best pondered behind the wheel listening to something like this. Doesn’t happen a lot these days, but anytime I’m east of the Cascades, this is coming on.
Sam’s pick and my take: The Mountain Goats- All Hail West Texas
One of the best parts of the trip through Texas I mentioned above was staring out the window. The landscape can be stark, but it's also beguiling- a siren calling you toward it. As we drove, I kept wondering about the people who called those parts of the world home. What was here for them? Why'd they stay? Should I join them? Are there lots of snakes?
At any rate, one of John Darnielle's superpowers is thinking of a mood or situation and then building a whole-ass album around it. Listening to the album, you can smell the mesquite and feel the constraints small-town life imposes on people. If ZZ Top captures the vibe of a place, Danielle captures the portraits of its denizens. This (like all Mountain Goats records) is a masterclass in character study and is likely a backstory for at least a few of the countless houses or shuttered service stations we flew past.
That’s a wrap! What are your thoughts on these records? Do you own any of them? Share your thoughts in the comments! Rants, raves, and spicy takes are all welcome. And if you have any ideas on future themes, please share those as well! Don’t forget to check out Sam’s thoughts over at This Is a Newsletter!
Thanks for being here,
Kevin—
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Tres Hombres! Wasn’t expecting that. Nice.
The only album I've spent much time with is the Hiatt, but I don't recall listening to it on a road trip.
I brought this up on the Rockin the Suburbs podcast a few years back. My go-to road trip albums are Material Issue's Freak City Soundtrack, Tom Petty's Wildflowers, Wilco's Sky Blue Sly, and Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs' Under the Covers Vol. 1.