Category Archives: Americana

Review – Hayshaker – Black Holiday in Mexico City EP (Shut Eye Records)

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Surveying a wide swath of American music in just 6 songs, Waycross, Georgia’s Hayshaker features the wedded C.C. and Laurie Rider on rhythm guitar and vocals, and vocals respectively and T.W. Lott on guitar and Frank Sikes on drums. The band belies their leanness in members by producing a massive sound sure to shake the tin roof off any roadhouse.

Their recent EP, Black Holiday in Mexico City gets things rolling with the Bakersfield-sound fueled “Laurie’s Song” with C.C. and Laurie’s harmonies reminiscent of Exene Cervenka and John Doe in X’s twangier moments. The middle part of the song breaks off into the chug-chug-chug that starts off Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5, but then kicks back into that sweet West Coast honkey-tonk beat.

In the Snow is a dark moody rocker that makes you want to bang your head to the story mental anguish. Scrap Work stretches out a country-rock landscape with yearning pedal steel and searing guitar work.

El Camino brings Dick Dale spastic surf-guitar spiked with Pixies fury complete with Black Francis yelps and exquisite Black and Kim Deal-style harmonies “Oh my pain, is like a candy cane, you lick and you lick, and it goes away.” Classic!

Black Holiday is a swampy murder ballad punctuated with a cool jumpy guitar lick that turns fierce in the middle then suddenly shimmers like asphalt heat just to jump up and blast out at the end.

Mexico City is a hoedown stomp reflection on South of the Border wantonness. “I lost my heart, I lost my soul, to a bottle and a whore in Mexico.” The EP ends with Dirtkick, a Black-Betty-eque hot rod surge to the cliff on a whiskey fueled race to hell. The drunken phone message hidden at the end is hilarious and a little freaky.

Pack up your ’56 Plymouth Fury and hit the long lonely dusty road and let Hayshaker’s “Black Holiday in Mexico City” be your soundtrack.

Laurie’s Song (MP3)

Laurie’s Song

Pop Matters Features Miranda Lambert

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PopMatters.com features 20 questions with Miranda Lambert. A highlight:

Of those who’ve come before, the most inspirational are?
Merle Haggard has been my inspiration. Waylon Jennings, Emmylou Harris are close behind. Since I’ve been writing songs and performing, Allison Moorer and Jack Ingram have been big idols of mine. All of these artists have written about what’s true even if it’s not always a pretty picture.

Miranda Lambert “Gunpowder & Lead” Fresno, CA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLC81Q49dyQ[/youtube]

It Burns When I Pee Episode #15

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Has it been a year already? BWIP turns calibrates their one-year anniversary with an interview with Wayne Gottstine from Split Lip Rayfield great music from Split Lip Rayfield, The Sluggos, and Scroat Belly (all with our special guest Wayne Gottstine). We also have music from Justin Towns Earle, The Honky Tonk Hustlas, and Missy Gossip and The Secret Keepers and a special dedication final song.

Illustration by Christoph Mueller

Joe Pug – Nation of Heat EP

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We mere mortals can only hope to be meager conduits for the grand themes of life – Love, hope, fear, death – these concepts are bigger then any one of us but that doesn’t stop the courageous and foolish from shaping these experiences into music and words.

Joe Pug, a Chicagoan sometimes-carpenter, is standing on the shoulders of Guthrie, Dylan, Van Zant, Prine, Clark, Simon and Young to join the ranks of present-day troubadours like Ryan Bingham, Willy Mason and Ray LaMontagne. Joe Pug’s songs belie this greenhorn’s recent foray into the craft of songwriting and his world-beaten voice belies his youth (early-twenties.)

“Hymn 101” is worth the price of admission alone. A trotting acoustic guitar supports the lyrics  “I’ve come here to get high, to do more than just get by, I’ve come to test the timbre of my heart.” and “I’ve come here to meet the sheriff and his posse, to offer him the broad side of my jaw, I’ve come here to get broke, and then maybe bum a smoke, we’ll go drinkin’ two towns over after all.” This is goddamn staggering in its courage and rich in it’s symbolism.

“Call It What You Will” has a mournful mood that brings to mind Townes Van Zandt at his most melancholy. “I call today a disaster, she calls in December the 3rd” Pug sings being at once melodramatic and nonchalant. You can almost feel the whiskey and brimstone on Pug’s breath when he sings “I am the day, I am the dawn, I am the darkness coming on” on the harmonica laced Hymn 35

There is a timeless quality to this 7 song EP, like a found chest of remembrances in your grandparent’s attic, there are treasures for this that pay attention. And the foolish courage of man armed with only an acoustic guitar standing as a lightening rod for the ages is a wonder to behold.

Joe Pug performing Hymn#101

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMTj6pZ1HCM[/youtube]

Dwight Yoakam to make 24th appearance on ‘The Tonight Show’

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From the Associated Press – Dwight Yoakam will make his 24th appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” this week, breaking the record for most musical performances by any artist. Yoakam, 51, is currently tied with Lyle Lovett for the show’s most musical performances with 23. Besides his appearances with Leno, Yoakam also was on “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson” six times, beginning in 1986.

Some of the appearances that stand out the time he and his late friend and mentor Buck Owens went on together to sing “Streets of Bakersfield.” Or when he flew 20 hours nonstop to entertain troops with Leno in the Middle East during the holidays.

“The great thing about everybody there is they’ve always been very willing to allow me the latitude to do what I wanted to do. I did things like ‘Back of Your Hand,’ which was a very low-key track. One time I went on with a (Latin) brass section and did ‘Silver Bells.'”

Yoakam’s latest album is “Dwight Sings Buck,” a musical tribute to his friend. When he does the show Thursday, one of the tunes he plans to perform is the Owens classic “Act Naturally.”

Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens – Street of Bakersfield – The Tonight Show

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

Gangstagrass

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When It comes to music I am not purist, and unless your advocating musical purity you better be talking about music created by banging on logs in a forest or your idea of musical purity is warped. The fine folks at Ninebullets.net came across a Rench genre mash-up of “Underground hip-hop vocals with Rench beats and tons of uncleared samples from early bluegrass, folk ballads, and blues as well as some modern bluegrass as well.”

The samples offered sound surprisingly good for being so opposite on the musical culture spectrum.

Justin Townes Earle Live Cuts at Hearya.com

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  • Hearya.com has posted four great live cuts from Justin Townes Earle. The cuts are “Lone Pine Hill,” “Who Am I To Say,”
    “Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me” and “Turn Out My Lights.” The session was recorded along with his live show
    accompaniment and friend Cory Younts.
  • Tickets for the July 5, 2008 Hootenanny in Orange County CA are on sale now.Some of the artists scheduled to appear are Mike Ness,BR549’s Chuck Mead,Royal Crown Revue, Cadillac Tramps, Grant Lee Phillips, Big Sandy, James Intveld, Guana Batz, Throw Rag, Blood on the Saddle, Roger Allen Wade, Russel Scott, Powerflex 5, Chris Schiflet, Dusty Rhodes, Rickey Warwick, Sh*tkickers, Hellbound Hayride and Wil Ridge
  • Aquarium Drunkard has a great post on a two-volume Dirty Laundry compilation that rounds up a collection of black country-soul cuts from the sixties and seventies. Samples offered are James Brown doing Hank Williams’ “Your Cheating Heart” and Bettye Swann doing  “Just Because You Can’t Be Mine.”
  • CMT’s Unplugged at Studio 330 has Shooter Jennings playing some cuts off his latest release The Wolf.”

20 Questions With Eleven Hundred Springs

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Galleywinter holds a Q&A with Matt Hillyer, lead singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of Texas’ best country band working today Eleven Hundred Springs. Hillyer talks about his influences, Texas musicians and juke joints, the stories behind some of EHS songs and the band’s upcoming Lloyd Maines produced release Country Jam (Palo Duro Records)

20. What do you see as the main difference between the music you’re making and the stuff you hear on mainstream radio?

We’re trying desperately to get back to the heart and soul of country music. You’ve got to get the blues back in to it. That heartfelt feeling that rings true for everyone. We’re trying to keep the formula simple in hopes it will be classic…or at least pay tribute to something classic.

(via the 9513)

If you find yourself in the Dallas area on May 31st get over to the Granada Theater to catch EHS for their CD release party and 10 year anniversary.

9513 Recounts The Stagecoach Music Festival

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The fine folks over at the 9513 are recounting the events from this years 3 day Stagecoach Music Festival at Indio CA
(right down interstate 10 from Palm Springs.)

I hope to catch Stagecoach next year because it offers a wide array of talent that country music all at one geographically beautiful venue.