I remember the comedian Chris Rock on a cable filmed stand-up special saying something like what is the world coming to when the top  rapper in the world is white (Eminem) and the top golfer in the world is black (Tiger Woods)?

I felt sort of like that the other night when Sen. Barack Obama’s historic speech at Mile High Stadium was capped off by  ”Only in America” by the NashVegas version of Hall and Oates, Brooks & Dunn. This is the same song George Bush used at the Republican Convention last election. One half of the duo, Ronnie Dunn is a staunch Republican but the song’s co-writer, Don Cook, is a founder of the Music Row Democrats so I guess it’s a Nashville pop-country equivalent of bi-partisanship.

Here’s a note to the DNC and Democratic candidates everywhere, there are great artists that make country music that actually LIKE you and stand for at least some of what you advocate. Ever hear of Steve Earle or the Dixie Chicks?

If that wasn’t enough I read that Mr.”Boot in the ass” Toby Keith has thrown his support behind Obama (though it seems it’s only because Obama is able to act white.) Keith states that he’s a life-long Democrat but he appears to be more like the right-wing Dixie-crats I remember when I was growing up in Dallas. Mr. Keith apparently gets peeved when people accuse him of being a GOP fan. I wonder where they might have gotten that idea?!

Thank goodness there’s some things you can still count on with Nashville pop-country music and uased as a backdrop for patiotic symbolism- John Rich. the shorter half of the insipid duo Big and Rich, and raging homophobic weasel, penned a love song to John McCain cleverly entitled “Raisin’ McCain,” The song will be featured at the GOP convention and it predictably sucks.

Toby Keith’s Pro-Obama Anthem (a parody)

Presenting the Hank III Exclusive World Premier Video of “Long Hauls and Close Calls” from the forthcoming new release “DAMN RIGHT, REBEL PROUD” in stores on 10/21 in CD and Double Vinyl format.
I’m posting this as a mirror to the Record Store Day web site which broke the video first.

Hank III – “Long Hauls and Close Calls”

You like girls? You like Country Music? Well sure you do…hell you got a pulse don’t you?!

The always incorrigible Blake Clayton at the REAL country podcast “It Burns When I Pee” features Episode 18 – “Twang Aint Just A Guy Thang” and features some talented (and beautiful) ladies that are out there putting their own THANG in TWANG.

Rachel Brooke is the featured interview. She’s got an amazing voice and a style all her own. There is also featured music from Star Anna, Elizabeth Cook, Carmen Lee, and Little Lisa Dixie.

It wouldn’t be an episode of IBWIP without another great, morally questionable comedy skit. Because of the state of our litigious culture they can’t mention the title of the skit, but it doesn’t stop the brilliant legal minds at IBWIP from doing it anyway.

There is a great giveaway featuring a Rachel Brooke Giveaway Pack and the cast talks about it’s up coming road trip to Cincinnati, OH. for the Metal Farm Magazine Release Party.

Oh and by the way, the official “It Burns When I Pee” web site is up and running (still looking for those Norma Jean nudie pics)…the Net will never be the same! Go show Blake some love and get his podcast and buy a damn shirt or two.

• Ellensburg, Washington based alt.country artist Star Anna is already a Twang Nation favorite and has tickled our fancy even further by offering an excellent ‘Crooked Path Live EP‘ available for download at Amazon. The digital four track EP release includes live versions of Crooked Path, Bed That I’ve Made, Five Minutes To Midnight and a never before released track, Push It Through. Star Anna will be appearing at Seattle’s Bumbershoot music festival.

• Texas Yoda and Country Music legend Willie Nelson’s debut novel “A Tale Out Of Luck” (Center Street Books) should not to be confused with Willie’s album “A Tale Out of Luck” which features the excellent song “Home Motel.” The book is the story of Retired Texas Ranger Captain Hank Tomlinson who must attempt to keep his sons safe from vengeful Comanche warriors while trying to catch a murderer who he knows will soon strike again. The name of the book and the album are a play off the name of Luck Texas which is an old western town built in 1986 on Willie Nelson’s ranch for the filming of “Red Headed Stranger.

• Four-time GRAMMY winner and Country Music Icon Marty Stuart will premiere his new television series The Marty Stuart Show this November starting with the first 26 episodes airing Sunday nights on RFD-TV.  The Marty Stuart Show will begin production in September at Nashville’s NorthStar Studios, home of RFD-TV. The 30-minute episodes, hosted and produced by Stuart, will be a part of RFD-TV’s new Sunday night prime time lineup with HEE HAW, Postcards From Nebraska, and Music & Motors.  Each show will feature music by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, as well as his wife Country Queen Connie Smith and performance segments from the best that country music and American music has to offer.  Radio personality Eddie Stubbs will serve as the show’s announcer and Stuart’s sidekick on every episode.
• Stuart  will also release his second photography book Country Music: The Masters on Nov. 11.   Chicago’s Source Books will publish the 342 page collection that includes Stuart’s personal photos of friends including Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Buck Owens, Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Ray Charles and more.   The book’s forward is written by long-time pal and country music fan Billy Bob Thornton.

It saddens me to see to see the belongings of greats being sold off when they die. Case in fact the ebony, hand-made Chinese wedding bed previously owned by Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. I guess in the end, it’s all just stuff…

The upside is that after Barry Gibb (yes THAT Barry Gibb) purchased the Cashes’ Hendersonville lake home in 2006 he gave the bed to a friend as a wedding gift. The new owner of the bed moved it so that it wouldn’t be damaged by construction around to the 14,000-square-foot house. As a result of a mishap of that construction the house was destroyed by fire in 2007.

So the bed was saved and is up for sale. Call Rhee Martin (615-253-0119) if you’re interested.

Amanda Petrusich has interviewed Liz Phair and Feist for Pitchfork.tv, not she turnes her talents to documenting the vast and rugged territory that is Americana.

From Pitchfork.com: “It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music. (Her first book was last year’s entry on Nick Drake’s Pink Moon in the 33 1/3 series.) Part memoir and travelogue, part sociological study and piece of criticism, It Still Moves features stories and interviews that explore the history and current state of Americana, “from Elvis to Iron and Wine, the Carter Family to Animal Collective, Johnny Cash  to Will Oldham,” according to a press release.”

She’s taken on quite a task here but I look forward to reading “It Still Moves.”

A few events celebrating It Still Moves’ publication are scheduled throughout the coming months.

It Still Moves events:

09-11 Brooklyn, NY – Book Court
09-18 Brooklyn, NY – WORD
09-19 Nashville, TN – Americana Music Association Festival
09-23 New York, NY – KGB Bar
10-09 Oxford, MS – Thacker Mountain Radio
10-10 Nashville, TN – Southern Festival of Books
11-01 Austin, TX – Texas Book Festival

• One of the original alt.country bands (they appeared on the cover of No Depression’s second issue), Blue Mountain, are back together after trials and tribulations and have just released their sixth studio album “Midnight in Mississippi” (Produced by Grammy winner Stuart Sikes) along with a re-recorded greatest hits album, “Omnibus.” I saw these guys for the first time about two years ago in Nashville and they are great live.
• It seems that Toby Keith is an Barack Obama fan and John Rich can hear Johnny Cash’s vioce from the grave (if that were rues I’m sure The Man In Black would have adviced Rich not to release his dreadful love song to John McCain. Not because it supports a Republican, but because it, well, sucks.
• The good folks over at the 9513 think the new George Jone’s release of duets “George Jones – Burn Your Playhouse Down: The Unreleased Duets” doesn’t live up the the Possum’s legacy.
• Pitchfork.com has a Q&A with David Berman of the band the Silver Jews.

Straight from the Truckers:

The Drive-By Truckers are pleased to announce a 23-date co-headlining tour with their friends The Hold Steady. The bands will alternate who closes the shows throughout the tour, pre-sale begins Tuesday, August 19 (http://rockandrollmeanswell.frontgatetickets.com) and the public on-sale starts Friday, August 22.

The tour is aptly named the Rock and Roll Means well tour. The name of the tour is taken from a lyric of one of Mike Cooley’s songs, “Marry Me.” The line is one of Craig Finn’s favorite lyrics (which he often quotes) “rock and roll means well but can’t help telling young boys lies.”

“We’re all really excited to tour with The Hold Steady. They’re one of the greatest bands out there now and their new album is amazing. Craig writes songs I wish I’d written,” says Patterson Hood. Finn credits seeing DBT live on their Southern Rock Opera tour as the inspiration for him to start playing music again. USA Today rec ently called Southern Rock Opera “this century’s best rock album.”

The Drive-By Truckers have just wrapped a sold out tour of Europe and will play the Outside Lands Music Festival this weekend in San Francisco. Their latest album, Brighter Than Creations Dark was released in January and debuted at #37 on the Billboard Top 200 Chart.


Drive-By Truckers & The Hold Steady – Fall Tour Dates

Thu    30-Oct    Louisville, KY    Coyotes @ City Block    
Fri    31-Oct    Nashville, TN    Ryman

Auditorium

Sat    1-Nov    Atlanta, GA        Tabernacle

Sun    2-Nov    Tallahassee, FL    The Moon @ FSU

Mon    3-Nov    Raleigh, NC        Lincoln Theater

Wed    5-Nov    State College, PA    The State Theatre

Thu    6-Nov    New York, NY    Terminal 5

Fri    7-Nov    New York, NY    Terminal 5

Sat    8-Nov    Philadelphia, PA    Electric Factory

Sun    9-Nov    Boston, MA        Orpheum Theater

Tue    11-Nov    Toronto, ON        Phoenix Theater

Wed    12-Nov    Pittsburgh, PA    Carnegie Music Hall

Thu    13-Nov    Bloomington, IN    Bluebird

Fri    14-Nov    Chicago, IL        Riviera Theater

Sat    15-Nov    Minneapolis, MN    First Avenue

Sun    16-Nov    Minneapolis, MN    First Avenue                    
Wed    19-Nov    Boise, ID        Big Easy    
Thu    20-Nov    Seattle, WA        Showbox            
Fri    21-Nov    Seattle, WA        Showbox     
Sat    22-Nov    Portland, OR        Crystal Ballroom        
Sun    23-Nov    San Francisco, CA    The Fillmore    
Mon    24-Nov    San Francisco, CA    The Fillmore            
Tue    25-Nov    Los Angeles, CA    Wiltern

To celebrate the August 19th release of “Gravity’s Our Enemy” Cadillac Sky and Skaggs Family Records will be holding two, count ‘em, two release parties.

The first takes place in  Nashville, Tennessee where those C-Sky’s boys will take the stage at the prestigious Grand Ole Opry. The show starts at 9pm. The second will take place Wednesday, August 20th in Fort Worth, Texas, hometown of the band, at Lola’s.  The party gets started at 7:30pm (admission is free with purchase of the cd), so get there early to get your place in line!

If you can’t make it to a show in person Cadillac Sky will bring the party to you. Just log on to www.skaggsfamilyrecords.com on Tuesday at 9:00pm (Central) and witness the birth of “Gravity’s Our Enemy” live on the webcast as it happens.

Cadillac Sky – “Born Lonesome”

Anybody that has read this blog for more than three seconds knows that I only review music that I like. I’m from Texas. I was taught if you don’t have anything good to say keep your trap shut. People work hard on the music they produce and I respect that even if  what they do may not be my shot of whiskey. That said, I would like to review the new release by Jamey Johnson three times to show how much I like it. I would like to but I was also taught to not repeat myself. So here goes…

Singer/songwriter Jamey Johnson is part of a movement that could be considered the new outlaws. Artists like Ryan Bingham, Hank Williams III, Shooter Jennings and the band Eleven Hundred Springs look back on country music’s diverse legacy (as well as a potent shot of rock thrown in for spice) to build a new movement that champions sincerity and grit over image and marketing.

These young’uns are not afraid to wear their influences on their sleeves and, honoring country music’s history, willing to put their personal stories- happy, sad, sordid – to music. While celebrating country musics roots these artists ride precariously close to what has been labeled alt.country/Americana/roots music. These sub-genres are considered the aural ghetto of what the big Nash-Vagas music and mainstream country music radio deem worthy of the country music label. Some radio programmers have even described the sound as “too country.” The nerve!

The sound of “”That Lonesome Song”" is not as spare (or groundbreaking) as Willie Nelson’s “Red Headed Stranger,” but like Willie did at the time of RHS’s release, I can imagine Johnson receiving feedback from the Nash-Vegas label gatekeepers that these demos sound good, but when can we record of the final songs? (To their credit Mercury Nashville seems to have had the sense to leave the songs as is.)

Johnson found work early in Nashville cutting demos for other songwriters so he knows when the varnish is applied and how the official way a Nashville record is suppose to sound. He has purposely thrown all that out the window for something truer and rougher around the edges. The occasional flub and musicians chewing fat is all here in all it’s beautiful imperfection. Johnson is backed by exceptional Kent Hardly Playboys (Kent Hardly Play, Boys – get it?)

Imperfection is also a theme that runs throughout this release, Johnson’s own. Sure the songs on “That Lonesome Song” sound lonesome (It’s intellectually lazy to mention as much, it’s right there in the title!) but they also have a vein gritty resilience running throughout. Ex-Marine Johnson pulls no punches mining his life for songs and there was some hell to be sure, booze, drugs, divorce, risking his golden-boy Nashville career (Johnson wrote “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” which was a hit for Trace Adkins and George Strait had recorded his song “Give It Away”), it’s all here encapsulated in 13 bleak cuts of cathartic beauty. And after it all he sounds like he’s enjoying life.

The release starts with appropriately enough with the sound of a prison door being closed behind Johnson as he leaves jail and is told to “Stay out of trouble.” I suppose heeding that advice led to his nearly year long seclusion as well as this body of work.

“High Cost Of Living” follows with it’s woozy pedal steel and tells a stark tale of substance abuse taking its toll on his life, his health and his relationship with his wife. “The high cost of living ain’t nothing like the cost of living high” Johnson sings in his plain Alabamian baritone drawl that advises us to “Leave that stuff alone.” The song then dissolves into guitar and pedal steel searing swapping solos. “Angel” is a lost-love lament done in slow-motion classic Texas waltz style that aches with longing, regret and a weeping pedal steel.

“Place Out On The Ocean” is a breezy beach song Kenny Chesney would never have the subtlety or sense to record. It’s like Guy Clark went some time in Key West and came home to Austin and wrote a ditty. Johnson even uses the cliched hip-hop couplet of “Mercedes” and “Ladies” and somehow just fits naturally.

As a humorously black foil to the song “Angel,” “Mowin Down The Roses” kicks off like a slinky funk tune complete with a mumbled “Crank it, aw here it comes” but shows it’s dark hillbilly humor right soon as the subject catalogs the remembrances he is dutifully trashing in his estranged’s absence.

“The Door Is Always Open” is eerily reminiscent of Waylon Jennings at his rollicking dusty best in yet another thematic turn of events as he assures his ex that she will always be welcomed back in his arms.

“In Color” is probably the most single-worthy (whatever that is) of the release. It’s a nostalgic mid-tempo tune on lineage and recollection that comes off as genuine, and stops short of cloying sentimentality by playing it straight.

“The Last Cowboy” begins with a distant tolling bell and then laments the vanishing world of great country music and the culture that cultivates it. In a  nip if not a bite at the hand that fed him Waylon Jennings, John Wayne, Gene Autry and Roy Rodgers are name checked as heroes that have been forgotten by Nash-Vegas establishment. The title song again conjures up visions of Waylon Jennings at his forlorn, ornery best.

“Between Jennings And Jones” concludes the release, It is a song that was derived of after a friend of Johnson’s said he found his first release in the CD store “Between Jennings And Jones” and the song recounts Johnson’s history in Nashville with it’s highest highs and lower then lows, with a few laughs and memories thrown in for good measure.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jamey Johnson a couple of years ago after seeing him perform at Nashville’s legendary Bluebird Cafe (where he played in a guitar pull with my uncle Tony Lane) and he genuinely seemed like a good guy that was loving life (and tequila, a few shots of which I enjoyed along with him) and living no wilder then Southern boy who had come into his own. It’s a shame that he had to fall when he was riding high but if “That Lonesome Song” is any indication of how he’s doing I’d say he’s back in the saddle.

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