Reviews

Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs - Last Album by Mike Elias, Electric Fetus, 6/13/06

Aptly named, The Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs are a genuine good time. With a folk and country inspired sound, the Liquor Pigs (as they're known to fans) cannot be pegged down to just one sound. On their third and possibly final release, Last Album, the boys mix their own songs with covers of some of their favorite local artists (Curtiss A and Charlie Parr, to name a few). This one has stayed a bestseller for many months, and rightly so.

MN State Fair, 2006 stage show recommendations - St. Paul Pioneer Press

The drink-beer-and-get-naked concert
Poison Sure, they don't have the deep catalog or grudgingly earned respect of Motley Crue but Poison makes up for it with a handful of dopey, lovable hits. And they provide the ideal backdrop for a night of slamming the cheapest beer available and (possibly) huffing Aqua Net behind the corndog stand.

The free equivalent: Take away the eyeliner, codpieces and pyro, and you've got — well, actually, the Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs are nothing like Poison at all. Except, of course, they also sound better when accompanied by budget suds

Liquor Pigs' 'Last Album'?
StarTribune review 11/23/05
by Chris Riemenschneider

It's impossible to walk into the Viking Bar with any sense of inconspicuousness and it doesn't help when you walk into the West Bank hangout just seconds before the Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs are about to kick off their set. "You don't have to wipe your feet," singer-guitarist Dave Babb admonished me, almost as if he was insulted by my actions. As much a comment on the Liquor Pigs as a band as it was the Viking as a beloved old saloon, these Friday happy-hour gigs are the ultimate place to kick up your feet. Thus, it was with sheer depression and desperation that I went to the Pigs last week to ask them about the title of their new CD, "Last Album."

The quintet's third album is another laid-back but rousing collection of cool old rarities and fun originals by Babb, all of which are either about drinking or the things that drive people to drink. Among the covers are nuggets by bluesmen Charley Patton and Stick McGhee and country pickers the Maddox Brothers, plus two from Minnesota barroom royalty: Curtiss A's "The Damage Is Done" and a West Bank-ified adaptation of Charlie Parr's "Jesus at Wal-Mart," changed to "Jesus at Palmer's."

read the full review at
www.startribune.com/stories/1371/5741552.html

Best Eclectic Artist:
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs
Minnesota Music Awards 2003

Best Americana group:
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs
Best Americana recording:
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs,
"Forget Your Truffles & Dance."
Minnesota Music Awards 2001

Best local music of 2002
Twin Cities Music Critics Tally

Top 10 albums of 2002
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs, "Half Cocked and Fully Loaded" -- The twangy and rootsy barroom favorites keep things loose and boozy for their second CD, but they also show off the six members' fine, Southern-inspired musicianship.

Best Live Acts
Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs -- With their regular gigs at the Viking Bar and other places where the beer pours easily, the ramshackle acoustic pickers know enough old blues and country tunes and inside jokes to entertain consistently.

Chris Riemenschneider
Star Tribune, Jan. 3, 2003

 

Their live shows are too fun for purists and too honest for posers. A perfect vibe for tossing a few back.

Mike Elias
Mike's Big 10 for '02
The Chord

 

What you see is what you get: front porch swingin' liquor pigs. Don't get me wrong, these guys are all accomplished musicians. But, any one of them could be your crazy old uncle who's been playing in a band since he was 18. "Half Cocked and Fully Loaded" is full of the kind of good time rootsy bluesy stuff you want to listen to while swingin' on the front porch...with liquor...and a pig. Umm, I guess what I'm trying to say is, this is music that should be listened to and not described; crack a Summit, shut your goddamned mouth and dance.

Jack Sparks
The Other Side of Country

 

Half Cocked and Fully Loaded
Though they're as much a live band as buffalo wings are an appetizer, the Liquor Pigs do a respectable job recreating their onstage mayhem on their second CD. But "Half Cocked" also shows off the serious musicianship of the six players, whose long and varied backgrounds include country, blues, folk and bluegrass. The slow, acoustic blues stomp "Black Cat Bone" is as convincing as a yee-haw Western swing cover of "Somebody's Been Using That Thing". The vibe is well summed up in Feelin' Boozy," one of three strong originals by co-leader Dave Babb, who proudly confesses to a series of improprieties. Improper or not, the band can be proud of this one.

Chris Riemenschneider
Star Tribune Review

Pigs & Koerner

 

Liquor Pigs swing into Rock Bend
ST. PETER - Besides having the coolest name yet of any band to perform at the Rock Bend Folk Festival, the Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs also might have the coolest stage demeanor. After all, it takes some cool - not to mention confidence - to combine rehearsals with performances, which is what the Liquor Pigs do every Friday at the Viking Bar in Minneapolis. "Everyone gets involved in the ugliness of how a song takes shape"...

Joe Tougas
Mankato Free Press

 

"Forget Your Truffles and Dance" is the debut album from the Twin Cities' very own Front Porch Swingin' Liquor Pigs. I guess the "Front Porch Swingin" part of the name is to distinguish them from that other fine group with roots in the Twin Cities, the Back Porch Rockers. Although the Liquor Pigs are much more roots than blues, "Forget Your Truffles and Dance" is a good album by any measure."

Gordon Baxter
Blues On Stage Review