Todd Snider and Sara Watkins Ready New Releases

  • Paste Magazine used to trend more toward No Depression Americana coverage than Spin-style indy-pop coverage that they’ve moved toward over the last couple of years. This may explain what they’re still in print and No Depression isn’t. But Paste has not forsaken the twang altogether.  Paste’s  Andy Whitman does a round-up of three alt.country releases to check out – The Believers — Lucky You, Dallas’ The Von Ehrics — Loaded and Jason Heath and the Greedy Souls – The Vain Hope of Horse.
  • REM made a surprise appearance at a Carnegie Hall tribute show last night featuring Calexico, Bob Mould, Rhett Miller, Vic Chesnutt And Elf Power, Dar Williams, olie Holland, Patti Smith and Darius Rucker (!)
  • New-Grass supergroup Nickel Creek’s singer-songwriter and fiddler Sara Watkins is preparing self-titled debut of  songs penned during her time spent in L.A. Watkins’ self-titled solo debut features a wide range of collaborators for its 14 tracks, among them Elvis Costello drummer Pete Thomas, Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench, Gillian Welch and Davod Rawlings, as well as her old NC bandmates Thile and Watkins. Led Zep’s John Paul Jones (who beat his bandmate Plant down the Americana path when he produced Uncle Earl’s 2007 Waterloo, TN) produced the album in studio sessions in L.A. and Nashville. Sara Watkins hits stores April 7 on Nonesuch, with a national tour to follow. Nickel Creek went on “indefinite hiatus” in 2007.
  • More Tod Snider news: Snider’s new release The Excitement Plan (out June 9th on Yep Roc) and will feature Grammy-winning producer Don Was (Bob Dyan, Rolling Stones, Bonnie Raitt) and  a guest appearance by Loretta Lynn. ‘The Excitement Plan’ is “an old gypsy term” Snider adopted from his father. He explains, “I know right now that times are hard for all of us and that new songs from a folk singer are not at the top of so many grocery lists but these twelve songs are different. These twelve songs can be part of your solution. Just give them a chance. Take them in. Use ’em to help you appreciate your girl if you still got one, and/or your job if you still got one. Trust them, trust me and I promise you as god is my witness sometime here in the next sixty to ninety days we will be layin ’em in the sweet peas.”

THE EXCITEMENT PLAN TRACK LIST
1. SLIM CHANCE
2. GREENCASTLE BLUES
3. AMERICA’S FAVORITE PASTIME
4. DOLL FACE
5. BRING ‘EM HOME
6. CORPUS CHRISTI BAY [by Robert Earl Keen]
7. THE LAST LAUGH
8. UNORGANIZED CRIME
9. BAREFOOT CHAMPAGNE
10. DON’T TEMPT ME featuring Loretta Lynn
11. MONEY, COMPLIMENTS, PUBLICITY (SONG NUMBER TEN)
12. GOOD FORTUNE

Snider will tour throughout the spring with highlights including June 11th at NYC’s The Bowery Ballroom (tickets on sale now), and his first performance at Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival June 14th.

95.3 The Range presents Texas Music Revolution 100, March 22, 2009

  • Shiner Bock and 95.
    3 The Range presents the Texas Music Revolution 100,
    March 22, 2009 at the famous Southfork Ranch! This will be a great day of Texas-style twang featuring amazing artists, such as: Dirt Drifters, Darryl Lee Rush, Junior Brown, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Walt Wilkins, Micky and the Motorcars, 1100 Springs, Somebody’s Darling, Two Tons of Steel, Tejas Brothers, Max Stalling, and much much more! Tickets are $26. Aapre-party will be held on March 21 at the Dallas’ Granada Theater on Greenville Avenue.This show is FREE to everyone that buys a ticket to the Texas Music Revolution and will feature Stoney Larue & The Arsenals, Deryl Dodd, Austin Cunningham, Shootin’ Doubles, and Spur 503. Check out the newly updated www. khyi. com for more information.
  • J.B. Beverley & The Wayward Drifters new release Watch America Roll By drops  MAY 5th ’09 on Helltrain Records. The album was recorded at J.B.’s Rebel Roots Studio in Richmond, VA. and the PR says that it’s the “kind of real country music that honors American heritage and culture; the kind of country music rooted in the influence of Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, and other legends of the genre.” Judging by the cuts available at the bands MySpace page that’s an accurate description.
  • What do you do when your career is skidding and needs a boost? Don a Stetson, drop your “G”s  and cut some country tunes, Yall! Britney Spears 17-year-old baby sister Jamie Lynn Spears has reportedly relocated to Mississippi to raise her daughter Maddie and has “has been quietly working on a country album since last fall.” As much as I despise this genre carpetbagging, Jamie Lynn is a teenage mama a la Loreetie (though Loreeta Lynn had not one but FOUR kids by the time she was 17!)

Country Music Legend Hank Locklin Passes

  • Hank Locklin , Country legend, Grand Ole Opry member, pioneer of the country music concept album and “Nashville Sound,” and one of the greatest tenor singers in country music history, died Sunday in Brewton, Ala. His greatest hits included Send Me the Pillow That You Dream On in 1958 and Please Help Me I’m Falling in 1960.  Mr. Locklin had recently released his 65th album, By the Grace of God. He was 91.
  • I knew that country music fans were old school in thier aesthetic preferences but was surprised by the Country Music Association study which found that “countryphiles (18–54 year old passionate fans who appreciate country music and are fervent consumers of CDs, radio, television and concerts) are purchasing few digital downloads and, by extension, only half of country music’s biggest fans have home Internet access. I haven’t seen the details of these findings but it might explain why the top chart sellers are country music artists (well, Taylor Swift anyway.) It’ll be interesting to see what decisions will be made by the CMA because of these findings. Here’s to the return of local Jamborees!
  • Though I’ve decided to not review Middle Cyclone,  the new indy-pop release Neko Case the folks at Hearya.com do and they like what they hear.
  • Juli Thanki over at the always entertaining 9513.com reviews Written in Chalk, the new release by Buddy and Julie Miller (which I will be reviewing.)

Steve Earle’s Townes Van Zandt Tribute Album Update

As I’ve posted before Steve Earle is in the process of recording an album of cover songs of his freind, mentor, Texas legend and source of his son’s middle name Townes Van Zandt entitled simply Townes. Pitchfork has posted that the album will be released May 12 on the New West label and will also be available as a deluxe two-CD set and on 180-gram vinyl.

From Pitchfork: “Dust Brother John King, who produced Earle’s 2007 album Washington Square Serenade, mans the boards on one song, “Lungs”. On that same song, Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello guests on guitar. Singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, Earle’s wife, sings backup on “To Live Is to Fly” and “Loretta”. Earle also recruited a backing band of bluegrass all-stars to play on several songs. And duetting on “Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold”: Earle’s son Justin Townes Earle, appearing on record with his dad for the first time. ”

Head over to Pitchfork.com to hear a stream of Earle’s cover of Van Zandt’s “Lungs”, featuring Tom Morello doing his wikki-wikki turntable-scratch thing on guitar.

Townes track list:

1 Pancho and Lefty
2 White Freightliner Blues
3 Colorado Girl
4 Where I Lead Me
5 Lungs
6 No Place to Fall
7 Loretta
8 Brand New Companion
9 Rake
10 Delta Momma Blues
11 Marie
12 Don’t Take It Too Bad
13 Mr. Mudd and Mr. Gold
14 (Quicksilver Daydreams of) Maria
15 To Live Is to Fly

“Sweet Dreams” Celibrates Patsy Cline

  • Country Music Hall of Famer and Grand Ole Opry member Ray Price will visit Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum this Saturday, March 7. The velvet voiced balladeer is leaving his Texas home to share personal recollections of his close friend and mentor, Hank Williams, as part of an intimate interview that will get under way at 1:30 p.m. in the museum’s 213-seat Ford Theater.
  • Speaking of Nashville, Justin Townes Earle stopped by Grimey’s New and Pre-Loved Music on Thursday (Feb. 26) to preview songs from his sophomore release Midnight at the Movies which was released Tuesday (March 3.)  Check out cuts from Midnight at the Movies on Justin Townes Earle’s MySpace page.
  • Washington State female artists  Rachel Flotard, Kim Virant, Star Anna, Kristen Ward and Victoria Wimer Contreras will pay tribute to Patsy Cline with a “Sweet Dreams” concert at Seattle’s  Columbia City Theater tonight on this 46th anniversary of her death. “Sweet Dreams” concert at 8 p.m. tonight at the Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier Ave. S. (Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 at brownpapertickets.com. Information: 206-723-0088 and columbiacitytheater.com.) legendary Nashville print shop, Hatch Show Prints, that made original concert posters for Cline, Johnny Cash and others, has created a poster for the show using the original block from a poster made for Cline’s 1973 induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Copies, available at the concert, are $10 each.

Patsy Cline – Walkin’ After Midnight

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkkM7K6smQA[/youtube]

Review – Hank III – 2/28 – Grand Ballroom, San Francisco, CA

After waiting in the long stretch of black metal, punk, and outlaw country shirts, gimmie caps, and skin ink and whiskey in equal proportions, I arrive at the front of the gilded Grand Ballroom where I’m frisked before entry. Is this a bad omen or should the tightened security make me feel safer? For all the bad-ass attitude I found most people in the entry line, and beforehand at the Rout 101 Bar across the street, to be good-natured if raucous. Like a home-coming with a large, extended, disfunctional hillbilly family.

The opening act Those Poor Bastards played a feverish Southern-gothic welcoming the onslaught of clashing cultures that was taking place in front of them. “See you all in hell” vocalist Lonesome Wyatt called to the crowd as they left the stage. Was that a curse or an invitation to the party to come? I was unsure.

Shelton Hank Williams III bypasses the genteel pageantry manufactured by family-friendly backdrops like the Grand Ole Opry (with which he has a well reported beef) and taps back to the rough breeding dirt-ground that hewed many of the Opry’s roster in order to create his persona and his songs. So it’s no wonder that a Hank III show should so closely resemble a (good-natured) saloon brawl.

9:30 sharp the stage goes dark and a recorded dirge like you might typically find opening a Slayer performance booms. The capacity crowd begins to flail, stomp and scream like some Pentecost tent revival simmering in the Southern heat.

Hank II and the Damn Band (Andy Gibson – Steel Guitar, Dobro, Daniel Mason – Banjo, Adam McOwen – Fiddle, Shawn McWilliams – Drums, Zach Shedd – Upright Bass and Assjack screamer Gary Lindsey was on hand for background, well, screaming) walks on the stage and lurched into “Straight to Hell” knowing just what the crowd wanted. All hell breaks loose and my prime spot 5 feet in front of III’s mic becomes ground zero for a swirling vortex of moshing frenzy. This is a country music show for gods sake! Someone forgotten to tell these poor savages this is not the way people conduct themselves in an ager where Taylor Swift or Kenny Chesney are the standard bearers for comtemorary country music.

They came like a 8 second bovine-induced blur  – original trad-country rippers like “Thrown out of the Bar,” “Country Heroes,” “Cecil Brown,” “D Ray White,” “Six Pack of Beer.” Hank III name-checked the greats in “Country Heroes” then covered the same with Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues,” daddy Bocephus’ “Family Tradition,” and his grandaddy’s last prophetic single released during his lifetime “I’ll Never Get Out of This World Alive.” The heat was turned up with the thrash ode to performace provocator GG Allin “Punch, Fight, Fuck” (featuring Gary Lindsey on background screaching like a menacing demon shadow.) If you were on the fence about Hank III coming into the show you now found yourself on your feet or on your ass..either way you were having a damn good time.

The genius of 70’s era Willie Nelson was his ability to ignore the Nashville model and, using only his uniques talents and a keen sense of cutural timing, brought together groups that at the time wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room – rednecks and hippies -  and to forge himself as a cultural icon and an entire country genre. Hank III hasn’t Willie’s genius for songwriting, but given what I witnessed this night his cutural confederacy is well under way.

Hank III -Nighttime Ramblin’ Man/Ballad of D Ray White = 2/28 – Grand Ballroom, San Francisco, CA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m27gqejdtHQ[/youtube]

Paste Magazine Reviews The Flatlanders Newest

  • Remember when Paste Magazine was more Americana and roots music focused, in other words, good? They harken back to those  halcion days by reviewing the Lloyd Maines produced release by Americana super group The Flatlanders (Joe Ely, Butch Hancock and Jimmie Dale Gilmore.)
  • Over at the 9513 Juli Thaki reviews what sounds like a spectacular show by country music legend Kris Kristofferson in Washington, DC.
  • CMT. COM is holding a Dolly Parton contest that offers a grand prize is which is a trip for two to NYC, air and hotel included, with tickets to Dolly’s 9 to 5: The Musical.
  • Comedy Central will be roasting Larry the Cable Guy  (aka Daniel Whitney) on Sunday March 15th. I hope they feature this early version of this douche on the program.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIWO5LgUZ28[/youtube]

Justin Townes Earle Needs Your Van

  • The New York Time magazine Domains section has a sprawling Q&A with Lucinda Williams ranging from her favorite cover of one of her songs, misconceptions about songwriting, fictional character she identifies with and her worst day job she ever held downand much more.
  • Paste magazine posts that Justin Townes Earle needs a replacement for his touring van which broke down two days prior his sophomore album, Midnight at the Movies, was released.  If you own a car lot or have a new van or large SUV for sale contact Justin’s manager at: traci@thirtytigers.com. As of yet, no dates have been canceled.
  • PopMatters.com posted a 20 questions with former Mavericks frontman Raul Malo. The questions cover Star Trek or Star Wars? and The fictional character most like you? (didn’t we do that above already with Lucinda?!) The 9513.com offers an interview with Malo that goes into far more depth and covers a lot more interesting ground. Mal’s first release of new original material in seven years, Lucky One will be release tomorrow, 3 March on Fantasy records.

Rock Band Goes Alt.Country

So how do you know you’ve arrived? When talentless, sweaty geeks manipulate plastic instruments to music you’ve worked your butt off to create and hope will be taken seriously. Wooo hooo!

Harmonix and MTV Games today announced the debut of five alternative country acts to the Rock Band Music Store catalog of downloadable content including artists Neko Case, Steve Earle, Lucinda Williams, Drive-By Truckers and Old 97’s.

“Alt Country 01” 5-pack features a signature mix of alternative country sounds from bluegrass and rockabilly to honky-tonk rock. The 5-pack includes “People Got A Lotta Nerve” from Neko Case’s soon-to-be released album Middle Cyclone (March 3, 2009), “Can’t Let Go” by Grammy winning singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams from her album Car Wheels On A Gravel Road (1998) and Steve Earl’s “Satellite Radio” from his album Washington Square Serenade (2007). The 5-pack also features “Three Dimes Down” from southern rock band Drive-By Truckers featured on the Brighter Than Creation’s Dark (2008) album and the Old 97’s live recording “Timebomb” from the band’s Alive & Wired (2005) album.

Release Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 (Xbox LIVE Marketplace for Xbox 360®)
Thursday, February 26, 2009 (PlayStation®Store)

** Dates for Rock Band game tracks are tentative and subject to change **

Happy Birthday Johnny Cash

I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God. – Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash would have been 76 today. Nobody did more to usher country music from the turbulent late 50’s and 60’s, when rock and roll was eclipsing the music that had come before, then the Man in Black. He influenced the next generation of talent Dylan, Neil Young,  Joni Mitchell,and was open and humble enough to be influenced by them. Many he featured on his television show, many times to the displeasure of the ABC honchos. He did it because he saw in them a piece of himself…storytellers of the human condition scribing the dark and the light.

Johnny Cash died less than four months after his wife, June Carter, on September 12, 2003. He is buried next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash- I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZER0n2UadI[/youtube]