Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the incredible (and FREE) San Francisco roots/Americana festival has announced a partial line up roster for the three day event.

So far the lineup includes Old Crow Medicine Show, Mavis Staples, Earl Scruggs, Hazel Dickens, Aimee Mann, Little Feat, The Wronglers, Okkervil River, Marianne Faithfull, Richie Havens, Lyle Lovett and His Large Band, Neko Case, Dr. Dog, Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers, The Del McCoury Band, John Prine, Gillian Welch, Allen Toussaint, Billy Bragg, Doc Watson, Booker T. & the Drive By Truckers, The Chieftains, World Party, Old 97′s. Check the official site for more performer to be announced soon.

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival takes place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on October 2,3,and 4 2009.

• 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.)
  

This post is a riff off a conversation started by a review of “Middle Cyclone” by Juli Thanki over at my friends at the 9513.com

Neko Case’s new release “Middle Cyclone” dropped last Tuesday and I have been listening to it for over two weeks now. In that time I decided not to review it on this site. Though I consider Case’s “Blacklisted” and “Furnace Room Lullaby” to be two of the finest releases in the history of alt.country, I feel that “Middle Cyclone” follows Cases’ last release “Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” in her movement away from alt.country (or country noir) and toward the type of indie-pop Case has pursued in her other band The New Pornographers.

“Fox Confessor Brings the Flood” was the biggest selling release from Case’s career and it looks like “Middle Cyclone” is poised to be even bigger. But when I listen to these releases all I can think about is how much I loved her earlier, twangier work and his that beutiful voice has jumped the fence and perusing a muse more in line with Tori Amos and . It’s not that “Middle Cyclone” is bad, on the contrary it’s quite good, it’s just not the kind of music that I started this blog to celebrate.

I felt the same way when REM shed their early Southern-Gothic-art-school weirdness and relased thier mega-selling big label debut “Green.” I feel this way any time I lesten to Wilco now and remember this was the guy that used to be in Uncle Tupelo. Jeff Tweedy is making more money now and getting more recognition then he ever did in his former band and his bandmate, Jay Farrar persues a sound closer to UTs with Son Volt and labors in near obscurity to anyone outside the alt.country fathful.

I’ll end this rambeling post by putting it out to the readers, do you want bands to stay true to a genre distinction and do you feel betrayed when they move away and pursue new sounds and, sometimes, greater success. Do we prefer them to stay “pure” and yet poorer? Do the genre’s brightest stars have to move away from country music to flex their muscles due to the rigidity of what constitutes the country genre?

need to pursue a larger market to be heard since Nashville has such a strong lock on the country music

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 **

• The always excellent mp3 blog HearYa has offered up some in studio choice cuts from RiotGrrrrl hillbilly trio, and TwangNation favorite,  Those Darlins.

• Speaking of free downloads, Largehearted Boy has some rare and legal downloads from the likes of Kelly Joe Phelps, Mark Olson and Gary Louris, Son Volt, Steve Earle and Jason Isbell.

• If you tuned in to watch watch Fabchannel’s live webcast of Neko Case from Amsterdam Sunday you were probably pretty surprised that it didn’t seem to work. Unfortunately, the webcast didn’t happen because Neko fell ill and was unable to play. More information can be found  on her official site. Case is rescheduling her performance for sometime in August or September.

• Eleven Hundred Springs will be presenting the Country Jam Concert Series featuring EHS, Jesse Dayton, the Tejas Brothers and Deke Dickerson. The show will take place at Dallas’ Double-Wide bar on April 24th, things get started at 8pm.

• Neko Case has posted a bulletin on her MySpace page that she will be featured on FabChannel.com for a live streamed concert from Amsterdam. The concert will be broadcast live on that website this Sunday morning, Feb. 22, at 10 a.m. Eastern / 7 a.m. Pacific. According to the bulletin, “If you aren’t able to catch the live stream, keep checking back to FabChannel as they’ll be posting the entire performance for streaming next week!” Case will also be playing 2009′s  Bonnaroo Festival in in Manchester, Tennessee.

• Rachel Brooke has been working with Mr. Lonesome Wyatt from Those Poor Bastards on a full length album called it “A Bitter Harvest”.  It has a May release date and will be available on CD and Viny.

Until then Rachel has these tour dates coming up:
Mar 6 2009
Metrotimes Blowout! @ Carbon Lounge. Rachel and Junk, Switchblade Justice, Mantons, and Jason Croff Hamtramck, Michigan

Mar 26 2009
The Painted Lady, with Junk and Switchblade Justice Hamtramck, Michigan

Mar 27 2009
CS3 (Calhoun St.) with the Sour Mash Kats, the B-Sharps, and Paul Kuhlhorst Ft. Wayne, Indiana

Mar 28 2009
Shady Nook with Blue Collar Bastards Saybrook, Illinois

Mar 29 2009
TBA Kirksville, Missouri

Mar 31 2009
Players 5th Street Pub and Jon Jackson, TBA Quincy, Illinois

Apr 1 2009
Scagnoli’s Cajun and BBQ Lafayette, Indiana

Apr 3 2009
Annabell’s with the Misery Jackals! Akron, Ohio

Apr 4 2009
Molly Malone’s with The Misery Jackals, Wonky Tonk, Frontier Folk Nebraska Cincinnati, Ohio

Apr 5 2009
FooBar with the Misery Jackals and Dave Smith and the Country Rebels Nashville, Tennessee

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.” – H. L. Mencken

Despite the atmosphere of hope in the wake of a new President these are troubled time in America. War, torture, unemployment, jihad (foreign and domestic,) global warming and/or cooling, a society obsessed with bullshit and celebrates mediocrity….the only thing missing seems to be is locusts and floods, but hey the year is still young.

Throughout history hard and turbulent times have beget great music. The 1920s and 30s widespread poverty due to the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl resulted in Aunt Molly Jackson’s Hungry Ragged Blues to Woody Guthrie’s  This Land Is Your Landl. The 60′s gave us Crosby, Stills Nash & Young’s (well, mostly Young’s) “Ohio”, Bob Dylan singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” and John Fogerty wailed Fortunate Son. Sure the pop factories still pumped out confections of distraction, but the real stuff, the stuff that sticks and level-sets a society led astray by self-obsessed cynicism and thrusts us toward a greater sense of responsibility, civility and justice. That’s the stuff we remember.

William Elliott Whitmore has found a new home of kindred spirits with L.A.’s Anti- records, the more diverse sister label of the punk focused Epitaph records, and home for Bob Mould, Jolie Holland, Merle Haggard, Neko Case, the artist Whitmore is often (Erroneously IMHO) compared to Tom Waits, and the label where Marty Stuart had to shop the late, great Porter Wagoner’s last album (Wagonmaster) when Nashville refused to support the legend. He’s done his time on the road with bands like The Pogues, Murder By Death, Clutch and Lucero and cuts a lanky, tattooed profile of a punk front man or carnival barker. With punk cred and a hard core troubadour’s (sorry Steve Earle) ethic, Williams is the the most interesting kind of artist, a walking cultural mash-up with music and a voice that transcends fashion and speaks from the ages.

Some have referred to Animals in the Dark as a political work. I don’t see at as much as political but as a work. like his earlier Southern Records stuff, about perseverance of the human spirit against natural and man made woe and worry. The troubles here are just given a different face.

The trouble, and record, starts with Mutany, a military drumbeat driven call and response tale of a ship headed into bad weather and a crew taking responsibility for their ship and dispatching the drunken, incompetent captain.Whitmore shows his wry humor in this song by inserting the oft-heard (and sampled, right Nelly?) old school call and reponse from rapper Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three “The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn.” Love it.

Who Stole the Soul is a ragged lament of lost beauty and justice with a cello accompaniment brings a sense of loneliness and adds depth to Whitmore’s usual solo acoustic guitar. Johnny Law is Whitmore’s version of I fought the Law…with just as simple a structure and refrain, but he pulls short of claiming that the law won since he has the last word for the corrupt law man.

Old devils is where the album gets it’s name and it’s a song where Whitmore really starts to name names and harken back to a time when folk music was the Rage Against the Machine of its day. Corrupt politicians, draconian laws and unjust wars are all called out and the universal shit that comes down on the heads of those at the bottom is named. Hell or High Water is a wonderful barroom ballad of hope and faith in camaraderie in spite of all that came before of that will follow and faith again is the theme within There’s Hope For You with it’s Band-style organ and bashing swell of an ending.

Hard times traces an immigrant’s travels from Germany to the New World all the while struggling and bravely facing the adversity that chiseled and galvanized past generations and puts a spotlight on our own condition – what Clint Eastwood calls the “Pussy Generation.” There’s no appeal to higher authority of the deistic or terrestrial variety. It’s all bootstraps and grit.

Lifetime Underground brings Whitemore’s usual weapon of choice into the picture – the clawhammer-style banjo. Another tale of facing adversity, this time his own, as an ever traveling minstrel working the beer halls and Elk’s lodges of America in relative obscurity. Let the Rain Come In is a woozy pedal steel blues number that furthers the theme and facing off on the world and all comers. A Good Day to Die is a sentiment that nicely wraps up this fine release. Beauty and adversity are all faced in equal (existential? theological?) regard.

William Elliott Whitmore takes his music and themes into more primitive and universal territory than his more precious contemporaries like Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Iron & Wine that come off as dorm room folkies in comparisons. Whitmore’s work comes from a harder, darker place…wherever people are struggling and gives them unity in commiseration, hope and, yes, beauty.

Official Site | MySpace | Buy

William Elliott Whitmore – Old Devils – Raleigh, NC 11-5-08

The New York Times’ Daniel Menaker posts an extensive interview with Neko Case (Wild Thing) near her Tucson, AZ home for the papers’ magazine edition. The discussion covers Case’s troubled childhood, her love of animals and support for women’s reproductive rights, her early music career playing drums in several Tacoma, WA. and Vancouver, BC. bands, her start as a solo torch-twang performer backed by her band Her Boyfriends and her upcoming release “Middle Cyclone” (Anti-, March 3.)

If reading the NYT piece leaves you panting for more Neko Case (and judging by her fans at the show I attended a few years back, that is always the case) then check out Paste Magazin’e feature (and cover art) on the flame haired chenteuse.

Anti- records has confirmed the first leg of Case’s North American tour in support of Middle Cyclone . The 21 headlining dates will kick off in Austin, TX on March 31, and will see Case performing in some of the largest venues of her career. Case will be backed by her core band of Paul Rigby (guitar), Tom V. Ray (bass), Kelly Hogan (vocals), Jon Rauhouse (guitar) and Barry Mirochnick (drums). Crooked Fingers will open most dates.

Neko Case 2009 Tour:
3-31 Stubb’s BBQ Austin, TX
4-02 Variety Playhouse, Atlanta, GA *
4-03 Trustees Theater Savannah, GA *
4-04 WorkPlay Theatre Birmingham, AL *
4-06 Toad’s Place Richmond, VA *
4-07 Mymandi Concert Hall Carrboro, NC *
4-08 9:30 Club Washington D.C. *
4-09 9:30 Club Washington D.C. *
4-10 Keswick Theatre Glenside, PA
4-11 Berklee Performance Center Boston, MA *
4-13 Nokia Theatre New York, NY *
4-14 Nokia Theatre New York, NY
4-16 Le National Montreal, QC *
4-17 Trinity St. Paul’s United Church Toronto, ON
4-18 Trinity St. Paul’s United Church Toronto, ON
4-20 State Theater of Ithaca Ithaca, NY *
4-22 Charleston Civic Center Charleston, WV *
4-23 Newport Music Hall Columbus, OH *
4-24 Chicago Theatre Chicago, IL *
4-25 Riverside Theater Milwaukee, WI *
4-26 State Theatre Minneapolis, MN *
* W/ Crooked Fingers

Ah, love is in the air -  But if you’re a fan of country music then you know dysfunction litters the alleyways in the heart of classic narratives. Cheating, lying , drinking, throwing heavy objects, crying, more drinking – some of the best country songs contain some, if not all, of these elements. Alt.country/roots rock…whatever takes things in more interesting places but many of the same themes remain from the source. In celebration, and protest, to Valentines day here is the official Twang Nation list of best Alt.Country love songs.

In no particular order:

Gram Parsons – A Song For You
Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell – Please Break My Heart
Lucinda Williams – Still I Long For Your Kiss
Steve Earle – Valentine’s Day
Steve Earle – Goodbye
Townes Van Zandt – I’ll Be Here in the Morning
Neko Case – Favorite
Son Volt – Tear Stained Eye
Ryan Adams – Come Pick Me Up
Drive By Truckers- Marry Me
Old 97s – Big Brown Eyes
Bottle Rockets – I’ll Be Coming Around

Disagree? Add your own!

Caitlin Cary Thad Cockrell -  “Please Break My Heart”

• MyWestTexas.com’s Jimmy Patterson  looks over the life of country music legend Waylon Jennings as a catalyst that changed the genre forever.

• Chris Morris, the programmer for the defunct 103.1 country, blues, roots program “Watusi Rodeo,” has found a new venue online with  “Hillbilly Deluxe” on Scion Radio 17′s Web site.  The three-hour show streams continuously, so drop in and take a listen. There will be a new show posted every month. Great luck with the show Chris!

• Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival has announce the initial lineup for the eighth annual 2009 four-day camping and music festival held on June 11 – 14 on a 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee, 60 miles south of Nashville.  Some of the country and roots artist to perform are Wilco, Andrew Bird, Merle Haggard, The Del McCoury Band, Lucinda Williams, Neko Case, Jenny Lewis, Robert Earl Keen, Tift Merritt, Mike Farris , Todd Snider and The SteelDrivers.

Son Volt live at Bonnaroo 2006: Windfall