Category Archives: News

It Burns When I Pee Live Stream (heh!) Tonight

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓
  • It Burns When I Pee, the only podcast covering the cutting edge and proud tradition of country music, will be streaming their show live tonight (7:30pm CST) and showing us how the sausage is made. And yes, that is a lewd comment directed towards Norma Jean. The final gussied up and edited edition will be available  on Jan 23rd which will feature an interview and music by Bob Wayne.
  • George Clinton, leader of the psychedelic funk music collective Parliament Funkadelic, is one of the celebrities participating in this season ofCMT’s  Gone Country 3.  Says Clinton: “I wanted to do Gone Country because I wanted to learn how to write country songs. I’ve written a lot of songs before, but I’ve never been validated as country, not even to myself. I’m country. I am a country boy. Johnny Cash, I like his songwriting. I used to watch Roy Clark and all them all the time — Chet Atkins and all those guys are really good songwriters. The lyrics for country songs are miles and miles ahead of almost anybody else’s lyrics. I guess everybody would agree there’s no comparison to it. I’m pretty sure I’ve got to do something that’s pretty challenging. I try not to imagine what it is, so when it happens I’ll just say I don’t have no time to do nothing but get off my ass and do it. I’m funky about doing whatever it takes.” I might have to actually watch it this season in spite of the homophobic midget host John Rich.
  • Mercury Nashville is set to release an LP version of Jamey Johnson‘s Grammy nominated album That Lonesome Song on January 27.  Since That Lonesome Song was released, it has spent 8 weeks in the Top 10 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums Chart and has appeared on numerous 2008 Top-10 lists (including mine.)
  • Ryan Adams has announced a musical hiatus citing health issues and “narcissistic over-indulgent behaviour” as the reason. Really!? Who knew? In all seriousness, I hope Adams finds peace of mind in his reprieve.  (guardian.co.uk)
  • Shooter Jennings talks about to NPR World Cafe host David Dye about Waylon Forever, a collection of songs Shooter recorded with his dad Waylon Jennings in 1995. Shooter then revisited the material with his backing band, The .357s.
  • Joe Whyte is back with his band at the Rockwood on inauguration Tuesday. Aang great show will be had by all: Rockwood Music Hall
    196 Allen St., NYC – 8pm – FREE
  • New York blues guitarist Popa Chubby is readying his foray into country music entitled Vicious Country. The release features his wife Galea on bass. Below is a video shot at New York’s Rodeo Bar of Popa Chubby covering Hank Williams III‘s song Straight to Hell.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbaYETD15yY[/youtube]

Happy Birthday Ray Price!

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • Cybergrass has a nice post on the Grammy nominated soul-bluegrass (soul-grass?)  band The Steeldrivers.
  • As part of a settlement of a legal battle Mother Maybelle Carter’s 1928 Gibson L-5 acoustic guitar, along with Bill Monroe’s F-5 mandolin and two of Johnny Cash’s guitars will continue to be displayed in the Country Music Hall of Fame. (Kingport Times News)
  • Happy Birthday to Country Music Hall of Fame Member, Texas Country Music Hall of Fame Member, and Grammy Award Winner Ray Price. Born Noble Ray Price in Perryville, Texas, on January 12, 1926, the country music will be honored at a reception from 11am until 1pm on his 83rd birthday, Monday, January 12. (via stillisstillmoving.com)

Ray Price Willie Nelson Merle Haggard – Night Life

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD9WuHtq7U8[/youtube]

Red Eye Junction CD Release Party

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

San Luis Obispo. CA.’s home-grown honky-tonkers Red Eye Junction gets some local ink (pixels?) on a release party (Saturday, Jan. 03, 2009 – Downtown Brewing Co.) for their current work “In the Shadows” and their upcoming  8-day tour of Belgium and Holland .

Road and Track’s Peter Egan and Richard Mayer set out to cover Hank Williams last ride in a ’53 Powder Blue Cadillac on what they christin a “Near Miss Tour of Historical Authenticity.” (Hank’s Caddy was a ’52) (via 9513.com)

Apparently Jack Black has discovered Bluegrass and sings the traditional ditty “Old Joe Clark” on his father-in-law Charlie Haden’s Grammy-nominated CD “Rambling Boy.”

Jason Isbell Readying 2009 Release

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

Former Drive By Trucker Jason Isbell is readying the self-titled release of his second solo album. The release was recorded at the renowned FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Ala. and will be the first to feature the 400 Unit, which has been Isbell’s band for over 200 shows in support of irens Of The Ditch.

The 400 Unit features Derry deBorja on keyboards, Jimbo Hart on bass and Browan Lollar on guitar. Isbell co-produced the album with Matt Pence, who also lends his dumming talents to the lineup.

The release has a Feb. 17, 2009 drop date, but tracks can be heard now on Isbell’s MySpace page.

Tracklist:

1.  Seven-Mile Island
2.  Sunstroke
3.  Good
4.  Cigarettes and Wine
5.  However Long
6.  Coda
7.  The Blue
8.  No Choice in the Matter
9.  Soldiers Get Strange
10. Streetlights
11.  The Last Song I Will Write

Stagecoach Announces Festival Lineup

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The lineup for Stagecoach, California’s Country Music Festival has been announced. Along with the garden variety Nashville pop faire – Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire and Brad Paisley – the festival will feature more harder edged and rootsier artists – Miranda Lambert, Earl Scruggs,  Jerry Jeff Walker, Ricky Skaggs, Ralph Stanley, Dale Watson, The Duhks, some pleasant surprises, Dallas’ own Reverend Horton Heat, and a few wanna-bes – Kid Rock, Darius Rucker.

Stagecoach will take place on April 26, 2009 at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, CA. Tickets for go on sale Friday, November 14 at 10:00 AM (PT) at all Ticketmaster locations.

Merle Haggard Recovering From Operation

Posted on by — 1 Comment ↓
  • At the insistence of his family and personal physician, country music legend Merle Haggard had a malignant tumor removed from his lung Monday at Bakersfield Memorial Hospital. Our thoughts are with the Hag and his family and here’s to a speedy recovery.
  • NPR’s All Things Considered has a post on the Waylon and Shooter Jennings collaboration album Waylon Forever which they report “honors the outlaw legacy of Waylon Jennings. Shooter and his band complete the songs with the right combination of Southern rock with a Black Sabbath chaser. Waylon, who loved all kinds of music and even palled around with Metallica, would no doubt approve.”
  • If you’re in the San Francisco area tomorrow night (11/6) head over to Amnesia (853 Valencia St.) for the Hang Jones CD Release Party

Paul Westerberg Offers to Pen Songs For Glen Campbell

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • According to the Guardian and Paste Magazine it appears that Paul Westerberg, former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of alt-rock band The Replacements, wants to be Glen Campbell’s “next Jimmy Webb.” Webb penned 70’s pop hits like “Up, Up, and Away” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” for Campbell. Those are reported to be the words Westerberg used when requesting his manager to make arrangements to write songs for Campbell’s upcoming album after discovering that Campbell covered the Minnesota band’s “Sadly Beautiful”on Campbell’s latest release Meet Glen Campbell.
  • With a long career as a cracker-jack guitarist and co-hosting the hit country variety show Hee Haw with his friend Buck Owens Roy Clark is not resting on his laurals and will be hitting the road with another old friend, Mel Tillis, for a string of upcoming tour dates.

New Scott H. Biram Cuts

Posted on by — No Comments ↓
  • Been craving some fresh tracks from that “dirty old one man band” from Austin, Texas Scott H. Biram? Ivy League Sessions has the remedy for ails you friends. Three unreleased cuts fresh from the man an 18 Wheelercouldn’t kill.
  • Speaking of Austin, the good folks at the exceptional 9513 have a review of Melonie Cannon’s new sophomore release, And the Wheels Turn. 9513 thinks the the release might teach the pop-country divas currently in vogue a thing or two about writing and performing.
  • You know Joe The Plumber, right? Joe Wurzelbacher is the an Ohio plumber (though has no plumber’s license and apparently believes he doesn’t need on) that approached Barack Obama to ask how his tax plans might effect a plumbing company he was looking to buy and was then mentioned by McCain in the the last Presidentail debate 12 times as an example of the working class? Seems he’s using his new found celibrity status to seek a country music recording contract…oh and to bash Obama on Isreal.

James McMurtry and Lucinda Williams Get Political

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

As the 2004 2004 Presidential Election was drawing near James McMurtry gave away a free download of his state of the union anthem, “We Can’t Make It Here.” The song seemed to strike a chord with the public and went on to win Song of the Year at the Americana Music Honors and Awards. Author Stephen King described it as the “best American protest song since ‘Masters of War'” in his Entertainment Weekly column. On the brink of the 2008 election, McMurtry is now giving away a previously unreleased live version of “We Can’t Make It Here” from his 2008 concert at Southpaw in Brooklyn, NY.

Following the release of her new album Little Honey, Lucinda Williams has just released a politically-charged, digital only, four-song Live EP titled Lu in 08. The EP features three covers and one Williams original. The tracks will be Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth,” Bob Dylan’s “Masters Of War,” Thievery Corporation/Flaming Lips collaboration “Marching The Hate Machines” and the unreleased “Bone Of Contention.” The three covers were recorded live in Greensboro, NC in September 2007 and “Bone Of Contention” in Milwaukee, WI of July 2008.  Here the EP streaming here.

Johnny Cash Flower Pickin’ Festival – New York Times

Posted on by — No Comments ↓

The New York Times has a great piece on the second annual Johnny CashFlower Pickin’ Festival in Starkville, MS. Cash fans may know Starkville for the song made famous on  the live prison release “At San Quentin.” The song tells the tale of Cash’s after show journey through the town that night in May 1965, one of the darkest years of the musician’s life, leading to his arrest for public intoxication, or as Cash himself later put it “picking flowers.

While serving what would become a six hour stint Cash kicked his jail cell so hard he broke a toe, might or might not have given his $40. black shoes to a fellow cell mate named Smokey Evans while saying “Here’s a souvenir. I’m Johnny Cash.” Of the seven places Johnny Cash was arrested  Starkville was the only wrote one he wrote a song about.

Johnny Cash – Starkville City Jail

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnOdN0RmF1g[/youtube]

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]