You don’t expect barrelhouse boogie woogie, straight up garage rock or power pop from the ratchety voice who gave you “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues,” the iconic East Nashville Skyline or the Great American Taxi-backed Time As We Know It: The Songs of Jerry Jeff Walker. Yet fresh from fronting the freewheeling social commentary of The Jam-meets-Tom Petty Hard Working Americans – featuring Widespread Panic’s Dave Schools and Chris Robinson Brotherhood’s Neal Casal – Todd Snider’s Eastside Bulldog suggests there’s a new kinda rumble under the hood of the iconoclastic troubadour.

“I think if you work so hard to be taken seriously, you’ve missed the rock and roll,” Snider says with a wry smile, equal parts Shakespeare’s Puck and naughty teenager. “What’s wrong with uptempo and positive? This is Saturday night: crank it up when you’re ready to go out, drive too fast, get yer ya-yas out. Just let it go, and dive in -- and get rockin’.”