Category Archives: alt.country

Happy Birthday Gram Parsons

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

On this day was born in Winter Haven, Florida, 1946 the man that would, with his bands – International Submarine Band, The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers, fuse the  genres of country and rock and roll and change the landscape of both forever.

Gram Parsons was also pivotal in introducing Emmylou Harris, then a single-mother and folk singer working in coffee houses outside Washington, D.C., to country music and her to the world.

Gram Parsons certainly earned his place in music history within his short life (he died of a drug overdose at the age of 26 in a hotel room in Joshua Tree, California) and certainly blongs in the Country Music Hall of Fame , alongside one of 2008’s inductees Emmylou Harris.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BITiY8M_oDo[/youtube]

10 Spooky Gothic Country Halloween Songs

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

Despite Nashville’s best efforts to sanitize it for mass-consumption country and roots music has a long history of dealing with the dark side of life. Murder, violence, inebriation, the Devil, graveyards -  all the classic themes that also weave through All Hallows Eve are there. Hard times,  hard feelings and the tension between a righteous life and the tugs of temptation have led to some of the best music made. Gothic Country bands revel in dark misery like Carrie White drenched in pig’s blood. Except without all the telekinetic smiting. Enjoy!

10.  Those Poor Bastards: This World Is Evil -  There are few Gothic Country bands thatrepresent the genre so thouroughly as TPB. This World Is Evil is a prime example of the wretched wonder that they bring to thir live show.

9.  Reverend Glasseye: 17 Lashes – 17 Lashes is a horns-driven dark sea shanty by Austin-based Rev. Glasseye (Adam Glasseye ex-member of Slim Cessna’s Auto Club) worthy of going down with the ship with.

8.  Munly & the Lee Lewis Harlots: Amen Corner – This is a side project for Munly Munly, the front man for Slim Cessna’s Auto Club. It’s a yelping slice of brooding goodness.

7.  Sixteen Horsepower: Wayfaring Stranger – This is a live version of  Wayfaring Stranger from Club Lek, January 26 2000. 16 HP is no longer a band but this is a great testament of a man meeting his maker.

6. Scott H Biram: Blood, Sweat & Murder – Austin’s Dirty Ol’ One Man Band’s excellent gutbucket murder tune.

5. Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers:  Agony Wagon – Part Western-noir and part klezmer band Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers’ Agony Wagon is a frantic plummet into the pit of hell.

4. Creech Holler: Pretty Polly -A gritty take on the traditional English-language murder ballad.

3. Strawfoot: Churchyard Cough – A rousing Irish jig about the dirt nap from this fine band’s upcoming release How We Prospered.

2. Pine Box Boys: I Kept Her Heart – A boot stomping take on the murder ballad from this great San Francisco-based band.

1. O’Death: Low Tide – More frantic mayhem and doom from this New York band on what could be thier best song.

Google Launches Music Search With MySpace, Lala, Pandora, and More – http://bit.ly/Eu5PS

News Round Up: Bruce Robison Video Diary, E.C. and Orna Ball Tribute

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • Check out the video tour diary from Bruce Robison as he Robert Earl Keen, Todd Snider proceed up and down the East Coast and back into Texas on their Barstool Tour.
  • Check out the excellent videos of Casey Driessen’s 5-string fiddle hunt video over at Bluegrass Blog.
  • Steel guitarist Robert D. Norred, one-time member of Hank Williams’ backing band for a short period in the late 1940s, died Sunday, Oct. 25.
  • Face A Frowning World (Available 12/8 – Tompkins Square) is a tribute to the old-timey and gospel music of  E.C. Ball and his wife Orna. The couple were lesser known contemporaries of the Carter Family and seldom ventured far from their home on the Virginia-North Carolina boarder (in Rugby, VA) where they owned a general store and service station. Featured performance by  Jon Langford,  The Handsome Family (offered as a download below),  Michael Hurley, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, the Health & Happiness Family Gospel Band of Louisville, Kentucky, and many others.

Jenny Jenkins by The Handsome Family

When I Get Home I’m Gonna Be Satisfied by Jon Langford

Steel guitarist Robert D. Norred, one-time member of Hank Williams’ backing band for a short period in the late 1940s, died Sunday, Oct. 25.

#c0c0b4

Music Review: Lindsay Fuller and The Cheap Dates – Lindsay Fuller and The Cheap Dates [self released]

Posted on by — 5 Comments ↓

Seattle based artist by way of Alabama and Texas, Lindsay Fuller plumbs the deep, dark well of Southern Gothic narrative and, with the help of her excellent band the Cheap Dates, hauls up a mossy bucket of songs splendid in rich narration and bitter in their wretched fates. Southern Gothic yarns are bleak by design but reveal simple tales of moral beauty without being moralizing. Guilt tugs at the mind but crimes are inevitably committed and silver is pocketed. Fuller is a craftsman of such tales and sufferers no lazy couplets or threadbare allegory.

The album takes off like a freight train with You Can’t Go Back to Where You’ve Never Been. A barraging tale of a hard start (“I was baptised by the spittoon and the chamber pot at three/and I never saw the faces of the ones who conceived me”) leading to a desperate man hurtling head first into a violent, hard destiny.

The tempo cools to an icy stretch with Good Country People, a bittersweet folk ditty about a drifter motivated by insecurity to the theft of a prosthetic leg and the palatial yearn of My Dark Tower, which features exquisite guitar work by Jeff Fielder. Before I Sour begins fittingly with a church organ but is punctuated by eruptions of rock blasts to vast away the shadows. The spare beauty of On Holiday showcases Fuller in her powerful, open nerve of a voice.

Unlike many that use the Southern Gothic style in music Lindsay Fuller is not about camp and irony but is a dead-on wordsmith singing dark but beautiful tales of common people in hard times in sometimes peculiar circumstances that are told in a way that seem like it’s as natural to them as rolling out of bed in the morning, and then killing the neighbor.

The CD cover has Fuller standing in a field. Wearing a simple cotton dress, axe in one hand and an old fashioned typewriter in the other. This is a perfect visual metaphor for the work contained within. As Winter covers this morally wavering Nation with a cold, grey blanket sit back with a Cormac McCarthy or William Gay book and put on Lindsay Fuller and The Cheap Dates as a fitting accompaniment.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

four-half-rate

Lindsay Fuller – You Can’t Go Back to Where You’ve.mp3
Lindsay Fuller -  My Dark Tower.mp3

News Round Up:Jim Lauderdale Will Help Push Your Car

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • Birmingham Weekly sits down with Mr. Americana himself – Jim Lauderdale. Jim discusses hosting the Americana Awards ceremony at the Ryman auditorium, having the first single off the George Strait new album Twang and at one point Jim pauses the interview to help push a car to a station for a lady that ran out of gas. (his mama would be proud!)
  • The 4th annual  Joshua Tree Roots Music Festival will be held this weekend (October 10,11)  On the bill to play is Canada’s Blue Rodeo and Sadies, O’Death, Deer Tick, Blue Mountain and many more. The festival takes place at the Joshua Tree Lake Campground, about 9 miles northeast of the heart of Joshua Tree national park.
  • Miranda Lambert’s new release, Revolution, debuts #1 on the Billboard Country Chart and #8 on the Top 200 Chart. This will probably be the only time I champion any release that achieves that level of commercial success. Such is the power of Miranda Lambert!
  • Ju;li Thank is one bust lady. Not only is she writing about moonshine over at the 9513.com, she gives us a meaty perspective on Roseanne Cash’s new release, The List at PopMatters/com. The PopMatters.com review proper of Cash’s The List is provided by Ben Child.
  • Many NoDepression.com members (myself included) have shared many great photos from last weekends Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 9.
Blue Rodeo and Sadies, O’Death, Deer Tick, Blue Mountain

News Round Up:Billy Joe Shaver / Ray Wylie Hubbard’s The last Rites of Ransom Pride

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓
  • Country Music Prisde has a great interview with this indie sweethearts of country punk Those Darlin’s.

News Round Up: Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Begins

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • The winners of the 20th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards went to: Dailey & Vincent : Entertainer of the Year and Vocal Group of the Year, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper : Instrumental Group of the Year, Dan Tyminski – Male Vocalist of the Year, Dale Ann Bradley – Female Vocalist of the Year, Wheels : Dan Tyminski, (artist/producer) Album of the Year, Don’t Throw Mama’s Flowers Away : Danny Paisley & The Southern Grass (artist) – Song of the Year (via BlueGrassJournal.com) See photos from the award show, held at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn (The Bluegrass Blog)
  • London-based Americana (Euro-Americana?) band The Dog Roses have a new EP, Just Another Saturday, scheduled for release next month. It is discribed as “foot tapping country-bluegrass mix with hints of celtic thrown in for good measure.” Download Let the Bottle Take the Heartache from the forthcoming EP: Let The Bottle Take The Heartache Away.mp3
  • Go pick up the new podcast from NineBullets.net featuring tracks from upcoming cds by Lucero,  Strawfoot and Micah Schnabel (Two Cow Garage) as well as new material from Drivin’ & Cryin’ and Chuck Ragan.
  • Sounds Country takes a look back at Jerry Jeff Walker’s 1975 release Ridin’ High
  • Hardly Strictly Bluegrass begins today and goea on until Sunday in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park Speedway Meadow. The 9th year of this free annual Americana and roots festival features 5 stages featuring John Prine, Lyle Lovett, Ricky Skaggs, Gillian Welch, Steve Earle, Billy Joe Shaver, Elizabeth Cook, Buddy Miller and many, many more. You can follow HSB on twitter. And you can follow Twang Nation tweets from the festival all weekend.

News Round Up: Lucero Releases New Videos ; RIP Amy Ferris

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • I learned yesterday from a post on Twitter by Austin singer/songwriter Kelly Willis alerted me that Austin native fiddle player Amy Farris had been found dead at her residence in Los Angeles at the age of 40. Suicide is suspected, but an investigation is currently underway. Farris was a talented fiddle player and had recently been part of the group Dave Alvin and the Guilty Women. Her only solo release, Anyway, was produced by Alvin in 2003. Farris was scheduled to play Saturday with the Guilty Women at San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. As of this writing her name is still on the schedule.
  • Hear Rosanne Cash’s new release The List at NPR, including an iTunes exclusive cut featuring Neko Case, Satisfied Mind.
  • Miranda Lambert will appear on the Jimmy Fallon show tonight. Lambert also tweets that Jimmy Fallon is cute and sweet. Aww!
  • PopMatter’s Bob Proehl posts a nice piece on the legacy of Kris Kristoffersson.
  • Memphis, Tennessee-based Alt.country band Lucero commissioned a music video for each song on their upcoming record 1372 Overton Park– making 12 videos total. The level of sophistication of each fan-turned-videographer ranged from “some holding only handy-cams, others with years of training under their belt.” Ceck out the first two videos for What Are You Willing To Lose? and Goodbye Again.

Americana Conference Wrap Up

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

I’m baaaack. So if you’ve been keeping up with my tweets, or just reading the news,  you know the 10th Annual Americana Association Conference and Festival in Nashville last week was quite a shin-dig. I missed goodBBQ and that laid-back Southern charm and although the conference attendance seemed to be down a bit (well, a lot actually), if my Shiner fogged memory serves me, the showcases were better than ever.

There were a number of memorable nuggets that I wanted to quickly share. For one thing, there must be an aging painting in Jim Lauderdale’s attic becuase the man that is ubiquitous not only at the AMA event but in Americana music in general, still beams with youthful charm.

The performance that made my biggest impression was a serendipitous discovery. A friend’s showcase Friday afternoon at BB Kings brought Dallas’ Somebody’s Darlng to my radar. I should be ashamed of not knowing about them earlier since they hail from my home town and they rocked my ass with a their roots-rock soul sound.

Then there was the two great guitar pulls. The Douglas Corner Cafe featured The Americana Renegades Show with excellent performance by Irene Kelley, Roger Saloom, Joe Whyte and Stoll Vaughan. The club was like a Blue Bird Cafe II with a reverent and attentive audience. Then I lucked into getting out of the rain and a long line at the Station Inn to see Nanci Griffith, Mary Gauthier & Elizabeth Cook in their own audience hushing performance was a great treat.

Seeing Bearfoot do their short set at the Compass records’ notorious Hillbilly Central open house was also a nice surprise. I was not familiar with this newgrass band but they held the packed audience in spellbound attention with their performance and did musch less cocaine than the former Hillbilly Central residents.

There was the spellbinding rustic winsomeness of Amanda Shires. The leather-tough gold-hearted girl  – Angela Easterling (w. Will Kimbrough), and the omnipresence of Austin Texas with The Gourds, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Asleep at the Wheel, Reckless Kelly, Radney Foster and Charlie Robison.

Then there was standing near the stage to behold the wonder that is John Fogerty (along with Buddy Miller) at his semi-secret show at the Cannery. Wow…wow…

It was old-school alt-country at the closing night at the Basement with the ex-singer of Nashville super group BR549, Chuck Mead, and the only band that rivals the Drive By Truckers for a live performance, the Bottle Rockets, sending the whole thing off to a booming, bitter-sweet end.

Then there were the artists, radio, writers, fellow bloggers and general soldiers that, like myself, champion this music each and every day out of love more than riches (Ha!)

You can’t be everywhere all the time, and the four performance spaces for the AMA festival are a considerable distance from each other, so there are tough choices to be made and many show I wish I could have attended. But with a little logistics and a dash of serendipitous happenstance this trip to Nashville was a great party with wonderful memories (from what I can remember!)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE55QrdMR2M[/youtube]