This US ex-pat is spending American Thanksgiving Day in Canada. I usually spend it with family in the US, but due to a family emergency it was not possible this year. At least I am still skipping out on work. Whoo-hooo! I wish I was a better cook though. Sigh. At least I still get to watch football! Oh wait, the Lions are playing. Never mind. Maybe I'll do some laundry. Old 97's - Lonely Holiday (live).mp3 Buy: Alive [...]
We're just two days from watching this country take a dramatic turn back to sanity, back to the notion that everyone can and should thrive, back to the right way of doing things. This is the Yes We Can era. And what Tuesday's election will do is slam the door shut on the Can't era, as embodied forever by the Bush Administration's self-serving demolition of the fundamental principles of this
On the brink of the election and (hopefully) the tail end of the economic crisis James McMurtry has released a brand new live take on his now nearly classic song "We Can't Make It Here". We Can't Make It Here
Folks might recall that it was just this past February that No Depression magazine stopped the presses , closing down the revered alt-country/Americana publications after 13 years of keeping us all abreast concerning the ups and downs of rural music. But along with that news, co-founder Peter Blackstock sent out word that the No Depression website would be expanded and enhanced. Well, after several months, the upgrade has finally taken place. As of a week ago today, the new and improved NoDepression.com is in business and looking great. The [...]
So, I made it. I survived the heat, dust, and crowds at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. And much to my surprise, I actually had a great time. As the self-proclaimed "rock and roll curmudgeon" I didn't have high hopes. There's nothing I can tolerate less than bad sound, intense heat, and massive throngs of people vying for limited real estate near a stage. Okay, I'll come clean. I could only stomach two days at ACL, deciding to bail on Sunday in favor of blueberry pancakes at Magnolia Cafe and shopping on South Congress. Here are some [...]
If you've been reading this blog at all, then you know that the Americana Music Honors and Awards Show will be held tomorrow night in Nashville and will be broadcast live on XM Radio's X-Country channel beginning at 8:oo Eastern Time. This is just one more post celebrating the event and its past winners. I've written about most of this year's nominees over the past month or so. You can read those posts here ... a few of the songs have expired, but most of them are still there. Anyway... today we'll take a look at the [...]
The Americana Music Honors and Awards show is this Thursday night in Nashville at the historic Ryman Auditorium. I have gone through most of the nominees and honorees at this year's event in this space over the last month or so. As we lead up to the event this week, I thought it would be fun to take a look back at some of the previous winners. Today... song of the year. 2002: Jim Lauderdale & Ralph Stanley: She's Looking at Me [...]
It's been a while since I posted anything about the upcoming Americana Honors and Awards Show. Since it's coming up next week, I thought I'd better get back on the ball. You can find my previous posts on the Awards here . A full list of this year's nominees can be found here (scroll down). Last month, I started this whole series on the awards nominees by listing the five songs nominated for Song of the Year . Four of the five nominated songs come from albums nominated for Album of the Year. Since [...]
This is the first essay in our series about New York . Ted Berrigan, by Alex Katz. Nice to See You by Will Hubbard This week a good friend of mine gave me a wonderful book. It's called Nice to See You: Homage to Ted Berrigan , and includes an abundance of worthwhile insight into one particular circle of friends operating just after the publication of [...]
After enduring near drought conditions here in central Texas for a couple months, the skies have finally opened up. And they let it all go. Neither Dolly nor Edouard earlier this year had enough left by the time they reached me. But a simple northern front showed up just in time to stifle the heat and quench the earth. The last 2 days of constant rainfall have not only held the dust down, but instantly turned the brown fields to green and lifted burn bans. [...]
The great thing about havin' me a blog is that when I'm just cooking along editing shit and downloading pictures of dinosaurs and cavegirls and eating tortillas (you know, the usual workday stuff) and I'm stopped dead in my tracks by some song I ain't heard before is that I can post it up here and wax a bit and generally avoid doing real work. So, today, I opened a package, and this ugly little sucker fell out: I didn't even know there [...]
Stood at my, uh........... front gate today. Just thought i'd brag a little on my new homestead. If it weren't somewhere near 117 degrees out here, i'd spend a little more quality time outdoors. So until it gets cooler, i'll resort to short photographic expeditions returning to the AC only to make useless posts about them.... [...]
Saturating myself with James McMurtry's Just Us Kids for the past two weeks paid off big-time tonight as the Austin singer leaned heavy on the new record, playing eight of the album's 12 cuts. It's an incredibly strong record, and McMurtry brought it to the stage smoothly, with his Texas drawl right at the center of the mix. I'd known him mostly as a word man up until tonight, but I came away
Austin's James McMurtry makes another trip to Tucson tonight, in support of his fantastic new record, Just Us Kids. A consummate storyteller, McMurtry's songs unfold in a slow drawl, backed by bluesy bar-band guitars. His last two records have heavy with political statements - and scathing "Cheney's Toy" on Just Us Kids is more than just a protest song, it's among the first statements of any type
I became a big James McMurtry fan a few years ago after being turned onto his "Choctaw Bingo," a stunning "song about the North Texas-Southern Oklahoma Crystal Methamphetamine Industry" which chugs along a biting rootsy rock guitar riff and features some of the most clever (and dirty) lyrics you're likely to hear. It was only much later that I realized James was the father of Larry McMurtry, the author of (among other things) Lonesome Dove. Which makes you wonder if the McMurtry family reunions might possibly be close to as interesting as the one at Uncle [...]
So i'm pretty sure i'm more excited about volume 2 of this post than i was the first. Since volume 1 , we've seen these come out: The Black Crowes - Warpaint ~ buy it The Felice Brothers - The Felice Brothers ~ buy it Whiskeytown - Strangers Almanac (Deluxe Edition) ~ [...]
As this so-called winter fades to spring, and it warms up in places, other than here - that need warming up, hippies everywhere start making road trip plans. Because from March thru August, outdoor music festivals are happening across the country from Newport to Galveston, Austin to Wilkesboro, Manchester to the Everglades. i'm not gonna try to act like i've been to any of these outside of Texas, but i will in due time. Here's a little info on some of the festivals that i wish i could go to: [...]
I wanted to love the new song from James McMurtry's new record Just Us Kids . I was waiting to hear his trademark fuzzy guitar chords, the irreverence and anger he's shown in past political forays, and the emotion he can wring out of just a handful of words. But with "Cheney's Toy" I just don't hear it, or I hear it, but it just doesn't reverberate for me. With George Bush's stature falling by the minute, the war clearly a major mistake, the continued resurgence of the Democratic party and hopefully Barak Obama's ascendence [...]
I am the world's foremost expert in the subconscious so it is no surprise that the Times has already begun to parrot me . Nearly everything I do emerges somehow from my subconscious. For example, last night I lied to Dan Murray about something. I don't even know why I did this. I thought of a couple possible reasons, though: 1. I wanted him to like me. 2. I wanted him to hate me. 3. I hate myself. 4. I think I'm hilarious. 5. [...]
I love having my own tipsters, my own "deepthroat" if you will. On both swedesplease and songs:illinois I have a number of mysterious industry contacts who email me some pretty amazing stuff. Today I received a song from Ramsey Midwood's unreleased sophomore record. His debut record ( Shootout ) was originally released on Glitterhouse in Germany but was later issued on Vanguard in the US. This was a strange choice for the label since while the record was undeniably artistically robust, it had little chance of making any dent in the US. [...]
Rockstar Aimz
Catfish Vegas presents...
songsillinois
DC9 At Night
JamsBio Magazine
A Fifty Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz
This Recording
This Mornin' I Am Born Again
Wayward Blog
Heartache with Hard Work
Beach House covers Queen
Video: Nas – “Daughters”
The Bee Gees – Tragedy (Equateur Remix)
Ryan Smith - Waiting
