Category Archives: Country Music

It Burns When I Pee Episode 18 – Twang Aint Just A Guy Thang

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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.

Marty Stuart To Debut “The Marty Stuart Show” on RFD-TV in November

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  • 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.

Pitchfork’s Amanda Petrusich Surveys Americana Music In New Book

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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

Chrissie Hynde Goes Country

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Popmatters.com has a review of the DVD “Bill Monroe: Father of Bluegrass Music” which they discribe as “Informative and educational, intriguing and entertaining, part American history lesson, part biography and part concert film…”

The good folks over at The 9513 brought to my attention that current Twang Nation favorite Jamey Johnson will be joining Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, and Kenny Chesney (?!) for the 2008 Farm Aid music festival in New England on Sept. 20. Nashville Scene (High Lonesome Sound) and CMT.com(Don’t Tell Jamey Johnson That He’s “Too Country”) both offer features on Johnson.

The guardian.co.uk Music Blog has a brief run down of the current state of American alt.country/Americana scene (Are you ready for (more of) the country?)

Chrissie Hynde of the bad the Pretenders states that the bands first new album in six years (“Break up the Concrete”) will be “moving in a country direction.” Of all the country music carpet bagging that has been happening recently I have to say that a musician with Hynde’s credibility makes me think she’ll do it right, but she is a vegitarian, so does this mean that Jessica Simpson has to get another t-shirt?

Hank Williams pedal player Don Helms dies

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From Country Standard Time: Don Helms, pedal steel guitarist for Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys, died this morning at 81. He is featured on more than 100 Williams recordings. Helms played a lap steel (also known as “Hawaiian steel”) guitar. This type of steel guitar lacks the foot pedals found on the more modern pedal steel guitar, which did not come into prominence in country music until after Hank Williams’ death in 1953.

Now go put on a Hank Sr. song (“So Lonesome I Could Cry” is a good one) and listen to the distict wail of Helms’ pedal steel.

Americana Music Association Announces Line Up

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  • The Americana Music Association has released an initial list of arists that will be playing around Nashville during their music festival and conferencethis September 17-20 2008. Some of the performers will be: Jim Lauderdale, Mike Farris, Kane Welch Kaplin, The everybodyfields, The SteelDrivers, Tift Merritt, Jason & the Scorchers, Joe Ely, Malcolm Holcombe, Rosie Flores, Band of Heathens, Laura Cantrell, Cross Canadian Ragweed, James McMurtry, Jason Isbell and much much more.
  • The drop date for Chris knight’s new album, Heart of Stone, has been pushed back to September 2nd due to “production issues.” Guest musicians on Heart of Stone include Mike McAdam (Steve Earle, Radney Foster) on various guitars, Keith Christopher (Georgia Satellites, The Yayhoos) on bass, Tammy Rodgers (The SteelDrivers) fiddle and vocals, mandolin and banjo, and Michael Webb (The Wreckers, Allison Moorer) on B-3 organ, piano and accordion. Producer Dan Baird also contributes on guitar and vocals. Knight says of Heart of Stone “It might just be my best. For some reason, there’s a cohesiveness here that’s not like anything I’ve done before. But at the same time, it’s not real predictable. There’s a lot of texture to it as well, but it’s a simple record. I don’t know how that happened. But I know it when I hear it.”
  • The documentary “Johnny Cash: The Man, His World, His Music” will air on PBS stations tomorrow night. The film is directed by Robert Elfstrom and is a “cinema vérité look at Cash.”  PBS produced the documentary almost 40 years ago (!) Robert Elfstrom also takes some time to answer some questions for the the Tennessean (via the 9513)

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.

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.

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.