Category Archives: Americana

Review – The Weight – The Weight Are Men (The Colonel Records)

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The Weight are a Brooklyn, NY based country rock band that, in spite of it’s North-Eastern local, delivers the Southern-fried goods. The band was beget by singer/songwriter and veteran of the Atlanta, GA, punk rock scene Joseph Plunket who began dabbled in country music and recorded several EPs and one long-player with a revolving cast of musicians as he tapped his inner hillbilly.

Now blessed with a stable and top-notch line up Plunket, along with Fletcher “Poor Boy” Johnson on guitar, piano, and harmonica, Will Noland on bass, Jay Ellis on drums and Johnny Carpenter on pedal steel, has recorded an album of shear authentic and audacious country-rock, stripped clean of post-whatever and 100% free of ironic smugness. Imagine as the 60’s came to a close that back off in the woods of Saugerties, NY the Band had hung out with Gram Parsons instead of Dylan cutting tracks in the basement of Big Pink, that alternate history it might have sounded something like this.

The Weight’s newest release “The Weight Are Men” kicks off with a gentle strumming of “Like Me Better,” a bittersweet barroom testament to love gone wrong delivered by Plunket in his earnestly gruff vocal style. The highway rave-up “Had It Made” follows with its Southern boogie roots planted firmly in Chuck Berry’s territory.

“Johnny’s Song” is a lulling tune on life and love that builds to a big singalong finale and “Talkin” is a tune taken right from the Neil Young book of groove-roots compositions (complete with yawning harmonica) and offers one of my favorite lines from the album – “Give me a lady and rent control, it might take one, it might take both, to satisfy my soul.”

“Sunday Driver”  is reminiscent of the best of The Band’s bittersweet compositions. It’s a slow-moving, pedal-steel laced gem that really showcases Plunket’s voice. “Hillbilly Highway” is a traveling man’s fiddle-laced yearn to come back to his love that should be on mainstream country radio (it won’t be, mainstream country is too rigid and short-sighted.) “A Day In The Sun” is a harmonica fueled Southern boogie gives a the release a woozy “Sticky Fingers” send off.

Bottom line, “The Weight Are Men” is one of the best roots-rock releases of 2008.

The Weight – Had It Made (mp3)

Congratulations to Eleven Hundred Springs

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Congratulations to Dallas’ hottest honky-tonk band Eleven Hundred Springs for sweeping every category they were up for in the Dallas Observer Music Awards – Best Band, Best Album, Best Country/Roots Act and EHS lead vocalist/songwriter Matt Hillyer winning for Best Male Vocalist. I can’t say enough great things about Eleven Hundred Springs and you need to check these guys out if you love genuine country music with heart and soul.

Jackson Cage – Belfast, Northern Ireland

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I’m always fascinated when country music is honored and performed by folks overseas. I’m also interested in how new bands are able to use the web to do much of the heavy lifting traditionally done in the past by big labels with big money and a large staff. I get both of these plus great music with Belfast Ireland’s country rock band Jackson Cage. The Jackson Cage I’m most familiar with is a dour song about suburban futility by Bruce Springsteen on his release “The River.”  Jackson Cage the band do exhibit some of New Jersey’s most famous hillbilly’s knack for narrative, but only inasmuch as he was willing to channel Dylan, Woody Guthrie and The Band to tell a compellingly stark tale.

Jackson Cage’s self-funded, self-released, self-promoted and self-titled debut album managed to hit #1 on the most popular Alt Country Albums on Amazon MP3 (it currently sits at #5 just after Ryan Bingham’s Mescalito.) What makes all this more impressive is that Amazon only sells MP3s to US customers.

Jackson Cage is one of those rare cases where a band exhibits a skillful grasp of great music roots while working contemporrary technology just as adeptly. Keep your eye on Jackson Cage.

Jackson Cage – Taste the Moon(mp3)

Jackson Cage – White Line(mp3)

Jackson Cage  – I ain’t gonna waste my time(mp3)

It Burns When I Pee Episode 17 – Even God Needs The Devil

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Image by Keith Neltner

While working on their spiritual and format rebirth, It Burns When I Pee Episode 17 now offers new cast members, and an all around more righteous path to country music salvation. Featuring an interview with Jayke Orvis, from The .357 String Band and some cuts from their new album Fire & Hail. This episode also unleashes their new co-host Ryan “Creepy Guy” Hamm.

Blake and Ryan also talk about the Tim McGraw concert fight video, Norma Jean watch’s Two Girls and One Cup for the first time, and we play IBWIP Jeopardy. There is another famous IBWIP Giveaway’s, this time giving away an awesome Spfanzine.com T-shirt and Hank Cash CD. Jared Morningstar provides an album review of Justin Townes Earl’s new album, The Good Life.

But most importantly IBWIP graces us with jewels country music that Nashville’s conveyor belt of pop-country crap would’nt touch with a ten foot pole. There are songs from Adam Lee and The Dead Horse Sound Company, Justin Townes Earl, Plunkett, The .357 String Band, and Old Crow Medicine Show.

David Allan Coe and Shooter Jennings in Harp Magazine

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A great conversation by a couple of bonafide country music outlaws reminiscing about the good old days. From the piece:

JENNINGS: Nashville’s never going to change. They’re always going to be the same. They play by the rules. And it’s all still a pop thing. Nashville controlled it in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. It was just the reckless people that did it their own way that broke out [into the mainstream].

COE: The greatest example of that is Charlie Rich. Charlie Rich was just coming off of Behind Closed Doors, which was the biggest fuckin’ record. And if you went up by Sony Records, they would tell you-you couldn’t walk in a building, you know. Because Charlie was in the building, they had the doors locked. Security had to check you out first before you could get in the building. Then they had the awards show. And he was supposed to read the winner of male vocalist of the year. And he just opened the envelope and read it and took his fuckin’ lighter out and set it on fire.

JENNINGS: When John Denver won.

COE: Yeah. He refused to announce this guy as male vocalist of the year. And I thought it was the greatest fuckin’ thing I ever saw in my life. And you know what? You never heard Charlie Rich’s name again ever. That’s how powerful that town is. I just think music should be good or bad, period.

Charlie Louvin Readies Two Releases

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From Pitchfork.com: Country music legend Charlie Louvin, along with his late brother Ira, set the standard for duo close harmony singing that would later be followed by the The Everly Brothers, the The Wilburn Brothers and the Beach Boys. After Ira’s death in June 1965 Charlie launched a solo career that was put on hold for nearly a decade until last year’s “Charlie Louvin” was released on New York label Tompkins Square and featured a cast which included George Jones, Elvis Costello, Marty Stuart, Tom T. Hall, and Jeff Tweedy.

On September 16 Tompkins Square will release Louvin’s self-proclaimed “gospel record,” called Steps to Heaven. It features versions of 8 traditionals and two Louvin Brothers tunes.
Steps to Heaven Track List:

01 Love at Home
02 How Beautiful Heaven Must Be
03 Precious Lord, Take My Hand
04 There’s a Higher Power
05 Where We’ll Never Grow Old
06 If We Never Meet Again This Side of Heaven
07 Just Rehearsing
08 When the Roll Is Called up Yonder
09 I Feel Like Traveling On
10 I Am Bound for the Promised Land

A second record, Charlie Louvin Sings Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, is Louvin’s exploration of the darker songs, comes out December 9 also on Tompkins Square, and it borrows nine songs from the label’s recent compilation, People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs, 1913-1938. Those songs are supplemented on the record by the appearance of new versions of a couple songs from the first Louvin Brothers album, Tragic Songs of Life.

Mark Nevers of Lambchop, who has worked on records by Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Andrew Bird, produced, recorded, and mixed both albums.

Louvin has dates  throughout the rest of the year which includes a show in Nashville on July 30 opening up for M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel’s She & Him.

Charlie Louvin:

07-13 Winnipeg, Manitoba – Winnipeg Folk Festival
07-18 Athens, GA – Melting Pot
07-26 Palmer Rapids, Ontario – TBA
07-30 Nashville, TN – The Mercy Lounge *
08-08 Moss Point, MS – Moss Point
09-06 Sparta, NC – Sparta High School
09-20 Berea, KY – College Berea (Spoonbread Festival)
09-21 Chattanooga, TN – Chattahippie Music Festival
10-17 Austin, TX – Cactus Cafe
10-18 Durant, OK – TBA
11-01 Mobile, AL – Alabama Pecan Festival
01-17 Tampa, FL – 6th Annual Bell Buckle Cruise

* with She & Him

Kitty Wells Exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame

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The Country Music Hall of Fame will premier a Kitty Wells exhibit on August 15. Opening weekend festivities will include a 45-minute exhibit tour, guided by a Museum curator; an interview with Wells, hosted by 650 WSM announcer Eddie Stubbs and illustrated with photos, film footage and recordings from the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive; an autograph signing by Wells in the Museum Store; and a screening of the 1982 Showtime special A Tribute to Kitty Wells, hosted by Tammy Wynette.

Texas legend Joe Ely dropped by NPR’s Mountain Stage to play some of his great songs live.

CMT.com has an interesting article on the high fuel prices effects and the ecomonmis impact it has had on touring country music acts.

To illustrate the situation touring artists now face, Case recalls a recent Ralph Stanley swing into Texas. “It was just a straight run, not a lot of geography,” he explains. “He went from home [in southwest Virginia], played three dates that were all closely routed in Texas. He came back and his [roundtrip] fuel bill was almost $2,000.”

The Bittersweets Readies “Goodnight, San Francisco,” Offers Free Download

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  • Nashville Tennessee’s The Bittersweets – Chris Meyers (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Hannah Prater (vocals, guitar) and Steve Bowman (drums) – are offering a song “Wreck” from their upcoming release “Goodnight, San Francisco” ( 9/9/08)  produced by Lex Price, Mindy Smith. Personally I take the title of their new release as a good omen for my new home.

“Wreck” mp3

  • The Americana Music Association has announced that Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona will be their recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Not sure how I feel about Johnny Cash Remixed (10/14.) If it’s anything like the Nina Simone or Blue Note remix releases it could be cool. Featuring Buck 65 and Moceon Worker and John Carter Cash involvement in the project makes me think it’s a step in the direction of very cool. Cash often jumped and defied genres his entire career so this release could make a certain amount of sense.
  • Right now I’m watching “The Last Waltz,” the Martin Scorsese’s film of the final concert of The Band, 1978, Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco. Featuring guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, The Staples Singers, Dr. John and many more. Can muisc ever be this essential again? I doubt it.

Carrie Rodriguez’s New Release to Drop 8/5

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  • Austin-born, Berklee trained violinist-turned-fiddler/singer/song writer, and Chip Taylor protege, Carrie Rodriguez will release her second solo album “She Aint Me.” (8/5) The album is produced Malcolm Burn (Emmylou Harris, Kaki King) and wrote with Gary Louris of the Jayhawks as well as Mary Gauthier, Dan Wilson and Jim Boquist
  • The 10th Annual Pickathon Roots Music Festival (August 1-3, at Pendarvis Farm on Mt Scott near Portland, OR.) will feature35+ artists appearing on five stages, including two late-night venues. Some artists featured are Justin Townes Earle, a reunited Bad Livers, The Gourds, Hackensaw Boys and Wayne “The Train” Hancock.
  • According to Billboard.com ZZ Top has inked a deal with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings imprint through Columbia. The veteran rock trio is planning to hit the studio with Rubin (Johnny Cash, Neil Diamond,  Slayer) producing, for an album more in keeping with “La Grange”-era ZZ Top than its pop-friendly ’80s sound, according to manager Carl Stubner. I can’t begin to express how happy this makes me!
  • Since I’ve been here in the scorched shit-hole that is Irving Texas (but hey, it’s my native shit hole) I’ve tuned into the Clear Channel owned Dallas KZPS – Lone Star 92.5 and found it’s almost completely reverted back to it’s classic rock format it had abandoned to experiment in the alt.country/roots format. So much for experimentation and those great Willie Nelson promos they recorded. Nevertheless I found my solice in the excellent KHYI 95.3 The Range. In one sitting I heard Chris Knight, George Jones. Eleven Hundred Springs. Yeah I know I’m a little late to this party but, hell, I’m just tickled to be here.

Rebel Spirit Music Americana Showcase

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Rebel Spirit Music defines itself as an organization that can “support and develop the careers of independent artists both individually and as a community.” Okay, it’s got a hippy-dippy name and sounds like cultural collective commune but they do have the good sense to be putting on a great showcase tonight at the Rockwood Music Hall. On the bill is Twang Nation favorite Joe Whyte with Alec Gross, Kelley McRae and Nate Campany.   Get down to the East Village and show some love.

Wednesday, July 2
Rockwood Music Hall
196 Allen St.
8pm
FREE