After arriving in Nashville on Tuesday I was dismayed to discover there were no more rental cars to be had on site without a prior reservation. Three years in New York City has skewed my expectations on public transportation and led to my piss poor planning and not booking a car earlier.

Mt Uncle Tony Lane picked me up on this beautiful, sunny Tennessee day in his big, black Tacoma truck. Agter a detour to his home, my Uncle, who is a local songwriter (Trace Adkins, George Strait, to name couple) and I headed over to the 3rd & Lindsley Bar & Grill to get a beer and wait for some old friends of his from high-school to fly in from Dallas on their personal plane to eat some BBQ. We caught a show by a friend of Tony’s and had some good old Shiner (Not available in New York, though Lone Star is. Go figure.)

The BBQ place was closed on Tuesdays so we headed up a street a way and ate at a great hole-in-the-wall Tex-Mex joint advertising the “Best Margaritas” (they weren’t.) The food was greasy good, they had a killer Mexican shrimp cocktail and the good old boys reminisced about late nights in Dallas bars.

Later that night I was lucky enough to attend a guitar pull at the legendary Bluebird Café. Besides my Uncle Tony there was Victoria Banks (“Saints and Angels”), Dave Turnbull (”If Something Should Happen”) and Dallas Davidson (”Honkytonk Badonkadonk.”)

The Bluebird is a very ordinary place in a strip mall a little out of town. It looks like the type of place your Grandparents might take you for breakfast when you visit (assuming Grandma’s not up for cooking.) The Bluebird and the crowd that comes to hear the performers are all about the music. Theirs is absolutely NO TALKING during the songs. No “blah blah blah” as some poor girl or guy with a guitar tries to pour their heart out as a crowd of drunken idiots use them as background music. This was a music lover’s Xanadu.

After that, how could it possibly get batter? How about a round of beer and tequila at the Corner Bar with the Bluebird performers and Gary Hannon, a South African and great guy that penned the #1 Joe Nichols hit “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.”

Yeah, I know that the Americana community at large has a certain disdain for pop-country, but the songwriters that work for the machine are as authentic and passionate about their craft as any folkster.

The night was young (1 am), but I needed my sleep for the conference.

A nice announcement on Pitchfork - Columbia/Legacy will reissue Johnny Cash’s first chart-topping album– the live Johnny Cash at San Quentin– on November 14 as a three-disc (two CDs and one DVD) set, along with plenty of previously unreleased extras.

The 2000 remastered version of the 1969 LP expanded the original’s tracklist from 10 to 18 tracks, but this release will transcend both by including 13 previously unreleased performances from Cash and his entire ensemble, which included his wife June Carter Cash, the Carter Family, Carl Perkins, and the Statler Brothers.

Click on the above link for track lists.

So I’m back from the Americana Music Association conference and the awards ceremony that was held at the historic Ryman Auditorium. I met some great people, saw a lot of great music, learned a thing or twoand might be tapped to be on a panel next year (something called big, fat opinions for fun and profit, I believe.)

I’ll post much more soon after I get my bearings. Just a quick note, While waiting for my plane I was juggeling a sandwich and water in the check-out line of one of thise overpriced airport shops. As I’m paying for my grub I take a look around and standing right behind me is Alejandro Escovedo, sharply dressed as usual and with big dark glasses and his guitar case in hand.

Hanging in the Nashville airport is not a bad way to pass the time.

Yeah It’s a little early for the MySpace Showcase but I’m busy traveling tomorrow so just deal. This weeks showcase is the Snakehandlers. The self procalimed “World’s Loudest Country Band” and judging by the clips on their Mypace page I’m inclined to believe them. Powerful, tight playing, great vocals and a killer cover version of the The Jim Carroll Band’s  “People That Died.” Twang Nation says check these bad boys out!

So as I said a while back I’m going to be heading to Nashville to spend some quality time with my Uncle Tony Lane, (here comes the bragging) a singer/songwriter on Music Row that has written songs for Lee Ann Womack and George Strait among others, and his wonderful family and to attend the Americana Music Conference. This is going to be a great week.

I’ve never been to Nashville and am looking forward to visiting legendary joints like the Ryman Auditorium (home of the original Grand ‘Ol Opry) The Bluebird Café (where legends come to try out their tunes) and, of course, the Country Music Hall of Fame. And I can’t wait to get to see so many great performances (Rosanne Cash. Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, Alejandro Escovedo, Jon Langford, Tres Chicas and Ray Wylie Hubbard just to name a few.)

If you’re going to the conference and would like to meet for a drink drop me a line. I’ll be checking email on and off and will try and post from the road, but you know how these things go. If I can’t post from there I’ll wrap up when I get back to New York.

They sound like they should be making their brand of dreamy folk music over the smoldering embers of an Appalachian campfire instead of on the stop of a brownstone in their residential Brooklyn, but Hem’s music blurs place as well as time.

Much of Hem’s muscle comes as much from the sweet crystal clear vocals of Sally Ellyson as it does from the potently restrained songs of Dan Messe. During the recording of Funnel Cloud, Messe’s home was flooded during the recording sessions by hurricane Ivan and his father died a week later, the themes of tragedy, hope and acceptance run throughout the lyrics and the feel of the songs. Assisted by a 21-piece orchestra, Ollabelle singer Amy Helm and Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha, the music fills in the spaces between the silences at just the right time for emotional impact. Funnel Cloud is a glisteningly sparse and melancholy work that show Hem continues to deliver.   

As Jack Sparks says on his blog, this might very well be the greatest country song ever. WARNING - Not appropriate for playing at work or around your prudish, humorless friends. Happy Friday!