" Look, check it out, Lisa! You can tell the exact moment when his heart rips in half! " - Bart Spanning four and a half decades (1963-2009) and nine genres, here's my bitterness playlist. I originally had to cut this playlist down from 60+ songs. Not all of these songs are bitter; some are classics that will rip your heart out like poor Ralphy Wiggum up above. Love songs? Puuulleeeeaase. There's a lot of heartache in music, which is why we love it. Playlist 1. 13th Floor Elevators - [...]
What came first - the music or the misery? Did I listen to music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person? People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically [...]

Whoa, I've been away for quite awhile by STWOF standards. (Been busy listening to Bob Dylan's entire catalog and trying to look important at work.) Anyway, here is the last song needed to complete your collection of the original versions of songs covered by Gram Parsons : Carl & Pearl Butler – We'll Sweep Out The Ashes ( buy ) I just recently picked up this Carl & Pearl collection called A Family Affair . It's great. Pure honky tonky goodness. (The album also has a few tracks from Johnny & [...]

have a straight-up country ballad for you all today, from the 2007 album here tomorrow gone today by north carolina band two dollar pistols . two dollar pistols - nothing left of me this man, john howie, jr, sure has the kind of voice - stoic but available - perfectly suited for this type of roundelays. sounds a bit like richard buckne r, with more twang, of course. two dollar pistols are, after all, a real live country band. as simple as this song is, that refrain - [...]

We debated about whether or not to publish an end of year list, but we couldn't resist. As we've both said before, Lonesome is a bit like a published version of the kind of chat we'd have anyway, so here we are to share it with you. So picture us all down the pub, (two pints of Guinness, please), and take this list as our way of asking "have you heard this?". Catherine Howe - What a Beautiful Place Easily the most listened to in the car, for the [...]
Two Dollar Pistols are not that different from country artists like Dwight Yoakum and The Mavericks. Their brand of country music has that Bakersfield sound and would have been warmly welcomed by Nashville once upon a time. Not anymore. Their new album, Here Tomorrow, Gone Today , is out soon on the fledgling, but apparently quite serious label, 8th House Records . Here's two paint-by-numbers country songs; songs that are a dime a dozen, yet songs that need to keep being written/played/dreamed. Here Tomorrow Gone Today [...]

It's about time we had some proper straight-up country round here and these new ones from North Carolina's Two Dollar Pistols are just that. Full on slide guitar, honky-tonk, non-ironic country at that. And, my word, have you heard this man sing? John Howie Jr is blessed with a fine set of baritone pipes. He seems to know how to wear a hat, too, going by the picture that I managed to find. Not that a hat seems to give him much luck with the ladies, oh no, this is [...]
Well, it really is festival season around here, no? I was all set to (finally) get around to talking about next week's Troika Music Festival , when I was prompted with the reminder that this week features the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival , four days of assorted rootsy/folky/country/jammy music. It's worth a look. There's a lot of good stuff here, and it would take a few days to really sort through everything. Instead, you'll get what you got for Sparklefest last week -- a fairly random sampling of some things that look [...]