It Burns When I Pee “Have Yourself A Very Burning Christmas”

Episode #22 of It Burns When I Pee, the only podcast for covering genuine 100 proof country music,  is a naughty little release ready to stuff in your stocking.

Featuring the pin-up beautiful and talented Little Lisa Dixie Blake, Norma Jean and Creepy Guy burns the yule by playing tasty cuts from Eric Kinsey & His Tip Top Daddies, Nine Pound Hammer, Zane Campbell, and Mr. Chill & The Witnesses.

IBWIP  are also bringing back my favorite segment,  Norma Jean Watches Porn. They are replacing Earlene’s Sexy Time Advice segment with the new Creepy Advice segment.  What kind of show would it be without a IBWIP skit? In this episode the skit is titled, “IBWIP Meets Santa At The Mall”. Finally, the crew break out the presents and have the first ever IBWIP Gift Exchange.  IBWIP is better than that nasty sweater from your Aunt Edna!

Billy Joe Shaver indicted in 2007 Texas shooting

From the Associated Press: WACO, Texas (AP) — A McLennan County grand jury has indicted country singer Billy Joe Shaver on felony charges for his alleged role in an April 2007 shooting at a Lorena bar.

Shaver, 69, is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony, and a charge of unlawful carrying of a handgun by a licensed holder on a licensed premises, a third-degree felony, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported in its online edition Wednesday.

An official at the McLennan County Jail in Waco told The Associated Press that Shaver had not turned himself in Wednesday night.

Messages left by the AP for Shaver’s last known attorney and to his representative seeking comment after business hours weren’t immediately returned.

One witness said Shaver followed the victim, Billy B. Coker, out of Papa Joe’s Texas Saloon in Lorena on April 1, 2007, and asked, “Where do you want it?” before shooting him in the face, according to an arrest warrant affidavit filed last year.

Another witness said that after hearing gunfire, she went outside and heard Shaver say to Coker, “Tell me you are sorry,” and “Nobody tells me to shut up,” according to the affidavit signed by then-acting Lorena Police Chief John Moran.

Coker, who was treated and released, told police last year that the shooting was unprovoked.

An attorney for Shaver said at the time that Coker was drunk, aggressive and had a knife and that he followed Shaver outside.

End Associated Press. My take? Mr. Coker is looking to make his mistake into a pay bay.

Chrissie Hynde Goes Country

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?

It Burns When I Pee Episode #15

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

The Felice Brothers / Justin Townes Earle / McCarthy Trenching – Bowery Ballroom – New York City 4/12

Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, a concert can really floor you. Just surprise you in ways you had no idea you still could be. I’m glade to say this last Saturday I attended a sold out show at New York’s Bowery Ballroom that did just that.

Omaha Nebraska’s McCarthy Trenching opened the show at about 8:15 belting out self-described songs of drinking, killing and horse songs drinking, killing and horse songs with workmanlike diligence and little room for flourish.
26-year-old singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle then hit the stage sporting a throwback look – sequin-trimmed suit and Brylcreemed hair – to match his gloriously throwback sound. Accompanied by mandolin-banjo-harmonica player and stamp-collection enthusiast Cory Younts, Earle served up with his blend of old school honkey-tonk
(Hard Livin, Ain’t Glad I’m Leavin’) and Tennessee backwoods country (Who Am I To Say, The Ghost Of Virginia) and straight up corn-pone fun (Chitlin Cookin Time In Cheetham County, Your Biscuit’s Big Enough For Me.) All the country music history sketches that make up his new release ‘The Good Life” were on show in full force. Earle showed confidence as he stalked the stage, stomped his boots to cue chorus to bridge breaks and hoisted his acoustic guitar rifle-like Johnny Cash-style. The New York crowd whooped and hollered and the girls near the stage stood transfixed with by his rugged Southern charm. Earle left the stage with a song for his Grandpa (Absolute Angels Blues) after almost an hour and left the crowd wanting more but primed the crowd for what was to come.

The most accurate and hilarious description I’ve come across for the Felice Brothers (actually three brothers and friends) is by way of Andrew Leahey over at All Music Guide – “they’re a pack of earth-stained country boys from the wilds of the Catskill Mountains, not Ivy Leaguers who thought ransacking their parents ’60s records would a better career move than grad school.” Dead on description and doubly so live. Cards on the table, I came to the show for Justin Townes Earle and decided to hang for a few songs by these Yankee roots rockers just to see what all the fuss was about. I’m glade I did.

It appeared that many under 30-year-olds from the Felice Brothers hometown of the Hudson River Valley and the New York City area, where the Felice boys honed their craft in the subway stations, turned out to welcome them back home. Young girls in cotton dresses shouted the band members names like they had them in home room and their drunk boyfriends sang to every song at the top of their lungs like they could do it in their sleep.

The Felice Brothers are often compared to a more punked-out Band, and it’s a pretty fair comparison. Like The Band The Felice Brothers take country and roots music and turn it in on it’s history to exposes the Celtic, blues and gospel innards. Gothic Americana landscapes drenched with sepia, whiskey (on stage and in verse) and blood.

Sometimes it seemed that the band was using their instruments as weapons and songs would veer just out of control just to right itself at the last minute. Tales of broken dreams and dreamers flat broke and staring down narrowing odds (the harrowing Hey Hey Revolver), sin, redemption and Dixieland salvation (Saved (Lieber-Stolle), Mercy) and salacious limo drivers (Cincinnati Queen) and straight up murder ballads that would make Nick Cave take notice (Ruby Mae.) Sometimes the whole affair seemed like a Ken Burns soundtrack mashed up with the Pogues on a particularly heavy bender.

Guitarist and lead gravel-throated vocalist Ian, drummer and vocalist Simone and accordionist and bear of a man James Felice along with a guy named Christmas (bass) and Farley (fiddle and washboard) played music dank with tradition and yet crackling with passion and fire. I’ve always said that if you can fake authenticity you can do anything, but if there is any faking until they make it with this band then my well tuned bullshit detector was unable to pick up the trace.

There have been some leveling of derision at the Felice Brothers for supposedly cribbing their sound to the Dyan/Band basement tapes. These jibes are usually from critics that see no problem giving a pass to the likes of the Zeppelin/Pixies plagiarism that is the White Stripes. I agree with Picasso that bad artists copy and great artists steal. The Felice Bros. are casing the joint and armed to the teeth.

The Felice Brothers Bowery Ballroom 4-12-2008 – I’m Saved

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x90IqdwobUc[/youtube]

Scott H Biram Spring Dates

That “Dirty ol One Man Band from Texas: Scott H. Biram will be wheeling his First Church Of The Ultimate Fanaticism selling his brand of sanctified chicken-fried country blues music this spring and will be over in the UK in late May with some possible central Europeon dates in Early June.

Check him out at a chicken coop near you if you dare!

Fri 3/21/08 Riley’s Tavern Hunter, TX

Sat 3/22/08 Red Eyed Fly Austin, TX

Sat 3/29/08 Double-Wide Dallas, TX

Thu 4/10/08 Rhythm Room Phoenix, AZ w/Hillstomp

Fri 4/11/08 Plush Tucson, AZ w/Hillstomp

Sat 4/12/08 Casbah San Diego, CA w/Hillstomp

Sun 4/13/08 Safari Sam’s Hollywood, CA
w/ Wayne Hancock, 50 Cent Haircut, Hillstomp (SHB plays 3rd)

Tue 4/15/08 The Crepe Place Santa Cruz, CA

Wed 4/16/08 Bottom of the Hill San Francisco, CA w/Hillstomp

Thu 4/17/08 Axe & Fiddle Cottage Grove, OR w/Hillstomp

Fri 4/18/08 Dante’s Portland, OR w/Thee Loyal Bastards & Hillstomp

Sat 4/19/08 El Corazon Seattle, WA w/Hillstomp & Bob Wayne & His Outlaw Carnies

Mon 4/21/08 The Filling Station Bozeman, MT w/Hillstomp

Wed 4/23 Bar Deluxe w/Hillstomp

Fri 4/25/08 Bender’s Tavern Denver, CO w/Hillstomp, Rev. Deadeye

TBA (Possibly Lincoln, NE)

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6-G5uHFHk[/youtube]

It Burns When I Pee : Episode #13 – “Titties and Country Music”

Just when your eyes have started to glaze over with all the talk about Elliot Spitzer being the biggest dumb-ass on the planet or if Hillary and Obama aught to just be put into the steel-cage death-match of democracy, It Burns When I Pee has released Episode #13 the “Titties and Country Music” release.

Blake had the good sense to take my advice and got Doyle Mayfield from The Doyle and Debbie Show on to tell tales about his childhood and life performing with his “3rd Debbie.”

There is also a feature on CMT’s  My Big Redneck Wedding and choice cuts from fine artists like The Pine Box Boys, Malcolm Hocombe, Gerry Stanek, and last but not least Roscoe Fletcher. So get over to IBWIP find out what real country music is all about and get yer Hank on!!!