Some compare Rodney Parker to the Old 97’s Rhett Miller is style, tone and subject matter. You won’t find me doing that.

I was designing band and club graphics, doing mural painting and bartending part-time in Dallas’ Deep Ellum in the early 90’s and remember Rhett with his “Mythologies” era Brit-pop stylings, with his teen beat poster-boy looks, playing the bars and coffee houses with an endless pack of swoony sorority scensters in his wake. Safe to say when he headed into alt-country territory with the Old 97s I could appreciate the song craft but he was still a bit too precious.

That said, to compare Denton–based Rodney Parker to Rhett Miller is to give the latter too much credit and the former not enough. If pressed I’d have to say I would liken Parker to West Texas singer/songwriter Joe Ely. Like Ely Rodney Parker, and his phenomenal band the 50 Peso Reward, forge honky-tonk tinged pop spinning tales of love and pain all shot through with humor. But Rodney Parker and the 50 Peso Reward spices up this recipe considerably with a hefty dose of rock. And like any good Texas music worth it’s salt there is plenty of bravado, brawling and whiskey in equal measure.

The Lonesome Dirge tears out of the shoot like an amped-up Ring Of Fire - all Mariachi horns and squeeze-box accordion and Gabriel Pearson setting a furious gallop of military-styled drums that drives this song of roasting rattlesnake, drinking moonshine and spiritual cleansing toward a searing a Springsteen-like anthemic conclusion. Speaking of Springsteen, Parker and Co.take the Boss’ spooky atmospheric “Atlantic City” (hey, that pretty much describes all of Nebraska) and makes it a defiant opportunistic declaration rather than Springsteen’s original exercise in existential resignation.

“In The River” is probably the closest Parker and Co come to a mainstream country song, except that it’s good and structured in ways that take you by surprise. “Brother” is a helluva pedal steel girded mid-tempo rocker about sibling rivalries and “Ghost” moves into melodious Ryan Adam’s-style pastoral narrative territory ending on an Irish ballad note. I’m not sure what brought the Emerald Isle spirit running throughout this release, but it rears it’s head again on “I’m Never Getting Married” which is a straight-up Irish whisky-soaked sing-along celebrating bachelorhood.

It’s good to get the message here in New York City that great music is not only surviving but thriving in the Lone Star State and bands like Rodney Parker & Fifty Peso Reward are doing us proud.

I’m drawn to music that sounds both timeless and new. It represents to me the concept of the connection in time of the past and future all running like a river with us standing right in the middle with the muddy now caking our boots. It also assures me that there are forms of innovation happening within country and roots music that stand starkly in contrast to the Nash-pop variety (which is not always bad, but I’ll post more on that later.)

I’ve come across a couple of ladies making waves in that river of time and music by showing a palpable reverence for country music’s traditional roots while bringing a refreshing shot of indie creativity and a sense of daring into the mix.

Colorado native and Seattle resident and Sera Cahoone’s early life experiments with the sax and junior high musical path that led her to the drums where she established her bona-fides as a drummer for the now-defunct indie sadcore band Carissa’s Weird (who’s members also included Ben Bridwell and Mat Brooke now in the group Band of Horses) led to her surprising sophomore solo outing “Only as the Day Is Long.” the release is a country-noir landscape where Cahoone’s voice stretches sleepily over spare, atmospheric dobro, pedal steel, guitar, and fiddle backing. Like a slow-core book end to Neko Case’s Furnace Room Lullaby Cahoone’s themes of innocence, hope and dread are woven throughout. With titles like “The Colder the Air,” “Happy When I’m Gone,” and “Shitty Hotel” you know your not in for a sunny romp, but country and roots music has always mined a rich vein of the melancholy and Sera Cahoone has staked a rich emotional and musical claim.

As her early incarnation with the moniker Save Macaulay a teenager Nashville’s Caitlin Rose was able to deliver classic country tunes with respect and authority in her distinctively Dolly meetsEmmylou vocal style. After dropping alias and at the ripe old age of 20 this Waffle House aficionado has released a quirky and beautiful EP that was cut in two days in November 2007 at the Bombshelter studios in East Nashville.

The love of country’s history exhibited immediately with the EP’s packaging and on the first cut of the Dead Flowers EP. With ‘Shotgun Wedding” Rose sings the tune with a Smokey Mountain lilt over Bob Grant’s excellent mandolin . “Answer In One Of These Bottles” takes it’s place with another classic narrative of drinking to forget Rose then shows she has the pipes to take on the Patsy Cline classic Three Cigarettes In An Ashtray as she covers it with all it’sforelorn beauty. Docket is a quirky Kris Kristofferson -style solo-guitar number that is perfect Summer listening and a lone tambourine accompanies the whimsical Gorilla Man brings to mind ShelSilverstein play on words. Rose then tackles the classic Cosmic American Rolling Stones-come-Gram-Parson a;;ad of heroin overdose from which this stellar EP derives it’s title.

“Only as the Day Is Long” - Sera Cahoone

“Dead Flowers EP” - Caitlin Rose

James McMurtry and Lightning Rod Records are holding a contest for fans to create a music video to the protest song “Cheney’s Toy” off McMurtry’s new release Just Us Kids.

From the entries, McMurtry will choose the best videos and post them on his official MySpace page and website. If needed, fans can create videos using slideshow applications at RockYou.com.  Creators of each of the top five videos will receive t-shirts and autographed copies of McMurtry’s new album,  Just Us Kids (in stores now). McMurtry’s choice for the best overall video will also receive an 8 Gb Apple iPod Nano.

Some video fans have already made.

Roots rocker Chris Gaffney of the Arizona-based Hacienda Brothers succumbed to liver cancer today, friends say. Our thoughts are with his family.

Peter Larson at the Orange County Register penned a fine and fitting obituary.

Ex-Drive By Trucker Jason Isbell and his backing band the 400 Unit will celebrate tax day (April 15, for all you rich people) trying to pick up a little bank by releasing a live 6 song EP. “Twist & Shout” (New West Records) was recorded at the Twist and Shout in Birmingham, Alabama back on 11-16-07. After seeing Isbell and his band put on a great show over the summer I’m thinking this is probably just a quarter of the full show. Why not the full show New West? I’m especially disappointed about the decision not to include my favorite cut from Isbell’s solo release “Dress Blues” but I am glade to see the inclusion of some of his great DBT cuts.

Track listing:

1. Grown
2. Goddamn Lonely Love
3. Hurricanes and Hand Grenades
4. Danko/Manuel
5. Outfit
6. Into The Mystic

Jason Isbell - Dress Blues

All right Cali twangers, get out and see Wayne “The Train” Hancock and Scott H. Biram at Safari Sam’s two year anniversary show.

- From Billboard.com - Country music legend Emmylou Harris will release her first album of new material in almost five years.

On on June 10 “All I Intended To Be” (Nonesuch) will be released as the follow-up to “Stumble Into Grace,” which debuted at No. 58 on the Billboard 200 in September 2003.

Harris told Billboard.com last summer she secured assistance for the new album from the McGarrigle sisters and Seldom Scene lead singer John Starling. Harris duets with the latter on Billy Joe Shaver’s “Old Five and Dimers.”

Harris, who turned 61 last week, will also be inducted April 27 into the Country Music Hall of Fame. (via the 9513)

- Crawdaddy.com asks who is the reining queen of alt.country, Lucinda Williams or Kathleen Edward?

- SF Weekly talks to Tift Merritt about her new release - Another Country, living in Paris and her new home New York.

- Billboard.com reports on a topic I’ve recently been ranting about on this blog, the recent demise of music magazines.  John Biondolillo, general manager at Dave Matthews’ ATO Records mentions part of the overall problem, a generational shift in media consumption.

“The closures of the two magazines might also reflect larger trends for indie labels promoting triple A and alt-country acts. “In the last 18 months, our focus has begun to shift away from print ads and towards online and TV advertising,” Biondolillo says.”

Well folks they’re dropping like flies. After the crappy news that No Depression would bite it after the May/June issue I’ve recently discovered that Harp magazine will pull the plug after the March/April issue, the one with Dave Grohl on the cover. Harp has been rock and alt.country friendly since the start and might have picked up some of the slack from ND going down but, well, there you go. I guess it’s all up to you now Blender! Just kiddin…

Harp started in the fall of 2001 and featured a cover story on Alejandro Escovedo. Among the artists who subsequently graced the cover of Harp during the last 7 years were Grohl, Cat Power, Ryan Adams, Wilco, Bright Eyes, Nick Cave, The Stooges, Drive-By Truckers, My Morning Jacket, Liz Phair, Tom Waits, The Roots, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Neko Case, Modest Mouse, Jay Farrar, Mars Volta, Devendra Banhart, Steve Earle, Pete Yorn, and Howe Gelb.

Yeah, blogs like your truly might address 1/100th of what was covered in these magazines but there was a legitimacy that ND and Harp had established through editorial excellence and championing the great unwashed underdogs and howling back-woods diamonds in the rough. As I’ve said before it was ND that brought country music that was still cool to my radar and caused me to waste time doing this for going on two years. As much as it blows to watch the grandfathers of genre’s media go down, I believe that the seeds are planted all over the world (like those of a wanton 70’s honky-tonker) that will allows the artists and fans to plan a world takeover…or at least an open mic night at Tootsies.

Stacy Chandler at Hickory Wind has posted her husband Geoffrey’s matrix of a vision of an alt-country video game detailing artists, settings and powers. A sample:

Artist: Ryan Adams

Setting: A back alley behind Quizno’s at 4 a.m. or The Austin City Limits stage

Powers: Two fighting modes - “Greasy dopemups mode” where he can just sit there and take all kinds of damage

–or-

“Rage filled dopemups mode” where he gets a phone and the opponent is suddenly holding an answering machine to be the target of a blistering verbal assault

Hilarious!

Now this is how it’s done. Ellensburg, Washington based Star Anna Krogstie’s debut release, “Crooked Path” (the English translation of her Norwegian surname) delivers some of the finest work in alternative country today.

Echoing the folky remoteness of Cat Power (Chan Marshall), the rustic revivalism of Gillian Welch, and just a grain of Neko Case style Southern-gothic smoldering, Star Anna wears her influences proudly but makes her own mark on the material here.

Her band the Laughing Dogs lay down adept and solid sounds that moves from the alt.country of “If Wishes Were Horses” , “Black Cat Blues” to the Appalachian-style raved-up title song. “Places We Exist” takes page from the Van Morrison book of swinging pop-folk and “Space Beneath The Door” grooves along with a soft blues-funk that belies the love don’t live here no more message of the song. One of the finest songs in a whole line of fine songs is the slow-burning “No Surprise” featuring a weeping bottle-neck accompaniment is as haunting as anything done by the great Patsy Cline and is guaranteed to break your heart and make you reach for the bottle.

Sure the sound moves across a sonic landscape, but Star Anna pulls it all together with her lilting passionate voice. This is one of the finest debut releases it has been my pleasure to hear.

Star Anna - “If WIshes Were Horses”