I really love the Pete Stein\'s music.Is a must. Don\'t be a fool and buy a copy!!
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Truckstop Coffee serves up a breed of alt.country / southern rock with songs about whiskey, women, heartache, and interstate highways. Their sound is probably best compared to fellow whiskey, women and heartache stalwarts Lucero or The Drive-by Truckers. Hailing from Lake Worth, FL, Truckstop Coffee is Pete Stein, Caleb James, Nick Orow and Venny Portalatin.

In December of 2006 they released thier debut LP (a 5 song EP was released in 2004), One Damn Thing to Redeem. Partially recorded in South Florida and part in Knoxville, Tennessee. The cd opens up with a barn burner and possibly the best track on the cd, Way Down South, which is followed by Pretty Lil’ Smile, a fantastic song that sounds like it could turn up on the next Lucero disc. The cd then downshifts and cranks up the pedal steel for Madison County a fond recollection of someone’s hometown. There are stories of lost farms, lost women, and memories made sweeter with whiskey. The cd closes with a track about something I am probably way too familiar with, Whiskey Shivers, a song about trying to get out of a town you’ve become to comfortable in. Whiskey Shivers also contains my favorite lines on the entire album:

    “Whiskey bottle never got anybody very far / But it’s hard to leave town when you can walk to the bar / and take your old familiar place / You’re an old familiar face”.

Ain’t that the truth.

Although, I worry that the “whiskey soaked heartbroken miles on a midnight highway” sound might be so dominated that they may have a hard time getting noticed outside of the local market, but with over 100 shows under their belt, a gig as openers for Brooks and Dunn, and having earned the title “Best Country Band — 2005” by Florida’s Citylink Magazine would suggest otherwise.
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Truckstop Coffee is a good enough live band — it's the reason the Palm Beach County quartet gets booked to play all those Honeycomb.com-sponsored street parties in West Palm. But even so, TSC through a live PA system isn't the same as TSC recorded. One Damn Thing to Redeem is easily the band's greatest accomplishment to date, and it exemplifies all that's right with studio recording: Every piano, fiddle, mandolin, and harmonica the band has added fits seamlessly into the mix, thanks to masterful knob-twiddling by Christopher Moll. And the songs themselves? There isn't a throwaway track on this disc. Guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter Pete Stein tears things up while carving out a sweet melody or two, starting with album opener "Way Down South," a scorching, Southern-rock-styled barnburner that wastes no time with polite introductions. Things slow down for a bit with the Replacements-like "Pretty Lil Smile" and the slide guitar-driven country of "Madison County." From there, it's an amalgam of uptempo romps and wispy ballads, ending with the soothing, introspective "Whiskey Shivers." Call it alt-country, Americana, roots-rock — whatever. It's good music, period, whether you're on the road to El Paso or on the subway to Manhattan. And if you're one of the first 100 to show up at Saturday's CD-release party, the album's free.
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