Tag Archives: Country Music

Upcoming New York shows

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The mighty Drive By Truckers will be at terminal 5 Wednesday March 26th. There’s still a few tickets available, let’s show the Truckers the New York love and sell this sucker out!

Austin’s own baritone-voiced guitar wiz Junior Brown – Monday March 31st at Maxwell’s – Hoboken, NJ

The Bodeans – Thursday, April 3rd at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza

Kathleen Edwards – Thursday, April 10 at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza

The Felice Brothers with Justin Townes Earle and McCarthy Trenching – April, 12 2008 at the Bowery Ballroom

Dolly Parton – Thursday, May 1st (rescheduled from March 7) 8:00 at Radio City Music Hall

James McMurtry – Thursday, May 1st at the Bowery Ballroom

The Wood Brothers – Saturday, May 17th at the Bowery Ballroom

The Bottle Rockets (15th Anniversary Show) – Saturday June, 7 at the Mercury Lounge

Any I forgot? Post ’em below!

Lone Star 92.5 – Full Throttle Garage

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Dallas based terrestrial roots-music/classic-rock/country-music radio station Lone Star 92.5 offers some great live performances by the likes of Steve Earle, Chris Duarte, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jason Isbell, Back Door Slam, Todd Snider and Billy Joe Shaver on their feature the Full Throttle Garage.

Quick Shots Reviews – Ashton Shepherd, Dawn Landes

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Quick Shots - MusicReviews Graphic

Ashton Shepherd – Sounds So Good (MCA Nashville) – Like her Texas counterpart Miranda Lambert, Alabama native Ashton Shepherd serves up a gritty remedy for the sugary pop-confection emanating most recently from Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift. Like Gretchen Wilson (without the goofy Muzik Mafia taint) Shepherd is a hell raising gal that calibrates good loving and a good time. Sure the release has producer Buddy Cannon’s Nashville sheen ladled over it like he does Kenny Chesney’s slop, but Shepherd shines through it with bad-ass glory. “Takin’ Off This Pain” puts all the cards on the table as a testament to women’s love woes. “I Ain’t Dead Yet” is a lovely Texas waltz about yearnings for good times in spite of domestic and maternal obligations. “Old Memory” is a slow burner that dwells on lost love that makes you forget the lady is only 21 years old. This is unabashed country music gold!

Dawn Landes – Fireproof (Cooking Vinyl) – Brooklyn by way of Louisville, Kentucky native singer/songwriter/producer Dawn Landes travels the same quirk-folk roads as her contemporaries Feist, Joanna Newsom and Chan Marshall (Cat Power) and like them she makes music that is both bold and subtle. On her second album, Fireproof, Landes hit a spot between the traditional and the contemporary. Like T. Bone Burnett producing The Breeders.

Singing with a voice that reflects a whispery-fragile grace reminiscent of Hem’s Sally Ellyson (some of the members of Hem appear on the release as well as members of The Earlies) and Suzanne Vega. Landes also plays everything from guitars, Optigans to bells and uses her experience as a producer to blend and fade between styles while preserving an overall mood of beauty veined with menace.

“Bodyguard” opens kicks things off like some kind of Appalachian beatnik mutation with it’s circular phrasings of “Where’s my bodyguard..” and “I saw a man, I saw a man, I saw a man..” it sublimely creepy. “Picture Show” has a Tom Waits scratchy junkyard carnival vibe that wobbles and skews under beat poetry. My preference for music with an open smile instead of a smirk and songs like “Tired Of This Life” and and the pedal steel tinged “Twilight” exhibit a simple, honest beauty that is reminiscent of Joni Mitchell.

Snoop Dogg – My Medicine

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I don’t often review singles on this blog but I heard something recently off an album that I won’t be reviewing in it’s entirety so I thought I would give it  a shot.  I was flipping channels over the weekend (and enjoying the Houston Rockets winning 22 in a row!)  and I came across Snoop Dogg discussing his new release “Ego Tripping.” During the snippet I heard the interview-bot mention that there was a country song on the new release.” “Yeah I love Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson.” Snoop’s well known enjoyment of the chronic helped me to make sense of the Willie appreciation…but Cash?! Really?

Now admittedly I don’t know much about rap music (I relay on C-Dog as my source for that) but I’ve always believed that rap muisc, just like folk, punk and country music is, at it’s core, working class music telling the stories from the common person’s view. Whether for fun or for commiseration it’s all for the folks.
Sure when the labels, managers and marketing department gets done with it it sure doesn’t seem like it but there is a common thread to be found running through Minor Threat, Public Enemy as well as Hank Williams.

That said the story that Snoops song “My Medicine” is defiantly more in the fun column and is about, shocking I know, getting stoned. The laconic shuffle (with guitar provided by Whitey Ford AKA Everlast, no stranger to the rap/country world)  brings Snoop to start out with respect with a shout out to “My Main Man Johny Cash. A real American gangster” and then moves into spoken delivery stretched over Whiteys bottle neck guitar.  “My Medicine”‘s feeling and take on the healing effect of the occasional mood elevator reminds me of Willie Nelson and Kenny Chesney’s excellent front porch jam “Worry B Gone.” As Snoop says “The more dedicated, the more medicated.”

With all the carpetbaggers storming Nashville for easy money and  demographic diversification I can’t imagine Snoop thought that his rep really needed him to do a country tinged song on his latest release. I respect him for doing it with the spirit many of those others will never reach.

My Medicine (mp3)

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

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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!!!

Shooter Jennings to open Charlie Daniels’ Volunteer Jam

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Charlie Daniels has invited Shooter Jennings to open a series of Daniels’ Volunteer Jam concerts this year. April 11-12 in Harris, Mich. the bill also features .38 Special (which includes Donnie Van Zant, of the country duo Van Zant.)

The origial Volunteer Jam took place in 1972 was suppose to a one-off showcase of Daniel’s friend’s which just happed to be the best Southern Rock bands of the time which including the Allman Brothers Band and the Marshall Tucker Band.

Houston Chronicle Features Ray Price

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The 9513 returned after a brief outage (hyew!) to draw my attention to this great article from the Houston Chronicle featuring country music legend Ray Price. Here’s a taste:

Price’s early notoriety was as a wingman, of sorts, for Hank Williams. They met in 1951 and became fast friends and roommates, drinking buddies and tour partners. Price would stand in when Williams was too drunk to perform. Williams got Price on the Grand Ole Opry. Price calls Williams “a great cat, down to earth.”

They were supposed to meet for lunch on the New Year’s Day, 1953, that news broke of Williams’ death. Price had seen him a few weeks earlier.

“He was pretty low. He was really depressed over his marriage and he slowly went (crazy). But he was a nice guy. Twenty-nine when he died. And he died at the top of the heap.”

Deep Blues Festival and BamaJam

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It’s time to start planing on this Summer’s musical festivals and this strikes me as two of the more interesting ones.

The 2nd annual Deep Blues Musicland Film Festival seems to do for blues what alt.country did for country music. Taking place July 18-20, 2008 and offering bands from 18 states, Italy, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom – the festival will take place on the East side of Minneapolis/St Paul to the Washington County Fairgrounds by Lake Elmo, MN. The lineup offers 45 band including Richard Johnston, Th’ Legendary Shack*Shakers, T-Model Ford, Scissormen, Black-Eyed Snakes, Black Diamond Heavies, Bob Log III, Scott H. Biram, Left Lane Cruiser, Hillstomp and Charlie Parr.

The Deep Blues Festival prides itself in being a”fan friendly” event. Free parking, affordable ticket prices and concessions, no ticket services fees, and plenty of room for the fans are guaranteed. A film festival will feature dozens of music related films and will be free and open to the public at the fairgrounds throughout the weekend.

A limited quantity of discount advance three day passes for this 21+ show are available at the two festival websites deepbluesfestival.com and myspace.com/deepbluesfestival for $45. Daily tickets will be available at the event for $30. Under 21 are free, but must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. Gates open at 10:00am, rain or shine.

BamaJam Music & Arts Festival is a three-day event in Enterprise, AL. – June 5-7 – and offers a nice lineup of country, Southern rock, folk and bluegrass acts. The fest will present 30 acts on three stages, including Hank Williams Jr., Trace Adkins, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Nanci Griffith, Ralph Stanley, ZZ Top, Randy Owen, Ricky Skaggs, Little Big Town, Miranda Lambert, Del McCoury Band, Tracy Lawrence, Darryl Worley, the Duhks, Dan Tyminski, Eric Church, Claire Lynch and Railroad Earth.

Ticket prices range from $39.50 to $99.50 for general admission, $149.50 to $309.50 for VIP.

New York Times on the City’s Growing Roots Music Scene

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The New York Times has a nice piece on something I’ve seen first hand. the rising popularity of Roots Music here in New York. The city that gave you the smoky Greenwich Village folk clubs from the 60’s seems posed to offer the same proving ground for roots and Americana music.

From the article: “There’s another generation of people who want to hear music that’s accessible, that’s not a prefab product, that’s lyric based but not preachy,” said Adam Levy, a guitarist and singer-songwriter who has played on all of Ms. (Norah) Jones’s albums. “If there’s a roots movement in New York now, I think of it in those terms.”