GLIDE MAGAZINE Video Premiere: “TOOLBAG”
Caitlin Cannon certainly knows her way around a song. She delivers playful lyrics with just-right phrasing in her smoky, seductive voice in slide-across-the-dance-floor propulsive countrypolitan tunes fueled by pop, punk, and show rhythms. Cannon cannily, and with a big heart and bigger voice, wraps up lyrics that shout frustration, anger, loneliness, and defiance in beautiful musical gifts that have her fans singing and dancing along with the tunes long before they realize the words they’re singing. It’s the mark of a great songwriter, as well as the sign of a performer who knows how to deliver memorable moments for her fans.
The desire and talent to perform run deep in Cannon’s blood. The Huntsville, Alabama, native, who now shuttles between Colorado and Nashville, making side trips back to Alabama to visit her brother, spent her childhood acting. She started playing in a little bar in Brooklyn with her band, Caitlin Cannon and the Artillery, and they put out an EP that revealed Cannon’s songwriting prowess as well as her deep musical influences. After breaking her elbow, she took a break from New York City and moved to Durango, Colorado.
On her new solo release, The TrashCannon Album, Cannon gets in touch with her truth and shines a light on hard truths—the trash we tend to keep out of view of the world and others—such as alcoholism and addiction, hard family stuff. Working with producer Megan Burtt, Cannon pulled together honest songs that formed a cohesive record. Caitlin Cannon is an Americana artist who, with passion and humor, delivers songs on The TrashCannon Album that shine a light on the ragged ways we live and love.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the music video for “Toolbag”, a propulsive country rocker that combines Dixie Chicks-like harmonies with deadpan humor. With plenty of piano boogie and an uptempo beat, the song rocks, rolls, and begs you to dance along with lyrics and imagery that’s gloriously dirty while also being damn fun. Cannon seems to be having one hell of a good time as she screws (literally?) with plenty of “toolbags” while also shouting out that she isn’t messing around anymore. Between the boogie woogie groove and the 90s country popiness, she gives us a tune that feels primed and ready for a dance party. The video is also hilarious and entertaining.
Cannon describes the inspiration behind the tune:
“Of course, it started as a joke. Megan Burtt and I wrote the song in response to some bad history I was repeating with a, quote/unquote, toolbag lover, to explore the irony around its already obtuse definition. Like, ‘Hey, you’re the ‘toolbag’ here, but I’m the one getting used.’ Then Tage Plantell and I made this hilarious video, asking each other all along, ‘Uhhh, can we do this? We can do this, right?’ I’m really happy we took risks because that part with the corvette makes me laugh my ass off every time. And I think it’s a good approach to problem-solving: focusing in on the issue, exposing it, saying ‘Isn’t this ridiculously embarrassing, and infuriating, and funny?!’ Great, now let’s do something about it, like make a kickass record and music video.”