Muddy Roots isn’t just a festival my friends. No. It’s an act of solidarity. It is a force of the collective Will of real roots fans united from disparate backgrounds, coming together to say “We are here, and things can work differently.” The Muddy Roots Festival isn’t just a big party, it is principles and philosophies in action; it just happens to be one hell of a good time as well.
I am very excited to announce a unique partnership between Saving Country Music, Hillgrass Bluebilly Records & Entertainment, and Muddy Roots Music (The Muddy Roots Festivals) to bring together the 5th Annual XSXSW showcase, aka XSXSW 5, as part of the annual mid-March gathering of the tribes in Austin, TX known as South By Southwest.
According to the Surgeon General’s office, an extensive study by the Centers for Disease Control has determined that country rap is a Class 1 cause of obesity, especially in adult white males. Apparently the data from the study is so conclusive and alarming, the Surgeon General is considering pursuing heath warnings on country rap albums.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s .357 String Band, one of the stalwarts and one of the first full-time bands in the underground country movement, has decided to call it quits. Their high-octane “streetgrass” approach to traditional bluegrass music made them one of the top-tier live and recorded acts in all of underground country, and afforded them a big following in Europe as well.
Only 44% of campaigns are being funded, and some folks are setting them up almost as a lark, like throwing a hook into the water just to see if it bites, diluting attention and sometimes money from other projects with a more purposeful aim. I’ve put a list together of some questions I think people should ask before starting a Kickstarter campaign.
Since country is such a traditional art form, as soon as you interject a hip-hop element into the music (rapping, drum loops, samples, whatever) it ceases to be country, and instantly becomes hip-hop. He wouldn’t think once about calling his songs country. In other words, there is no country rap. There’s country, and there’s hip hop.
As evidenced over and over in America, the intrusion of big box stores into communities means the downfall of many small, independent businesses, and the sense of community they create. Facebook, or any large website that is able to assert ultra-dominance over what you see and how you behave online could spell doom to the microservice, specialization, and just simple charm that independent websites are able to offer.
Once again I sit down to review an album originating on Music Row, which means some will have an immediate negative reactionary response about why their little Saving Country Music is selling out for a pop country star, while others will come to sing the praises of how Miranda Lambert is the one to save country music.
Frequent visitors to Saving Country Music know how much of a proponent of Reno, NV’s Hellbound Glory I am. If you want to accuse Saving Country Music of being the house organ of Hellbound Glory, guilty as charged. I’m not just drinking the Hellbound Kool-Aid, I’m slapping two fingers on the inside of my arm, looking for a vein to mainline the stuff right in.
Jason Isbell, former member of The Drive By Truckers and current solo artist had his van, trailer, and all contents stolen in Dallas, TX on Saturday afternoon. Jason and his band, The 400 Unit, were in Dallas Friday night, playing the city’s legendary Granada Theater on lower Greenville in support of his latest album Here We Rest.
If you’re reading these very words right now, it is very likely that at some point in your life, you went through a musical awakening. At some point, you were exposed to a piece of independent music, and it changed your life. It opened up a whole new world that you would have never known existed if it wasn’t for someone opening that door for you.
My overall grade of the 2011 CMA Awards would be “not terrible.” Jason Aldean could have swept the awards, and ushered in a new era in country music where a country rap song was the reigning Song of the Year. But Taylor’s Entertainer of the Year victory at least means that at least a little authenticity is still alive in the “country” genre. Or at least for another year.
During Martina McBride’s rendition of her song “I’m Gonna Love You Through It,” three times during the performance, you could clearly see a teleprompter flashing words in Martina’s direction. During Scotty McCreery’s abridged performance of the song ‘Walk In The Country” from his new album Clear As Day, he was clearly lip syncing.
We were wrong about Taylor Swift. I was wrong about Taylor Swift. We were blinded by our prejudices. When Taylor Swift first came on to the scene, she sang cheesy teenage pop songs, and we chastised her for it, when she was doing what all the great songwriters did over the years: write what they knew about, what inspired them.
The heavy thematic focus on Texas and Oklahoma in Red Dirt music is what has made the movement strong throughout that region. It’s also what keeps it from progressing beyond. I’ve always believed that good songwriting allows you to look past proper names, and delve into the meaning of what a songwriter is attempting to convey. Jason Boland does this in Rancho Alto.
Just like how Taylor Swift’s big 2009 sweep of the awards caused a dramatic pop-oriented shift in the genre, an Aldean sweep could cause a shift to Aldean’s calling cards of checklist songs and country rap. And a win for the song “Dirt Road Anthem” would all but make the formation of the mono-genre complete.
Following this success and attention to video, many independent artists are making video a bigger priority. And not just one video, but multiple videos, “serial” video releases if you will, of both viral and more conceptualized varieties, to keep their music in the forefront of fan’s minds over a longer period than just an album’s initial release.
It has become evident over the past few months that Muddy Roots is the answer that many artists and fans have been waiting a long time for. Now Muddy Roots has announced that they are expanding to Europe, with a full-fledged two day festival June 9-10 at the “Steakhouse Saloon” compound in Belgium this upcoming summer.
“Life Is Beautiful” is a laundry list song; a laundry list song that schools all of it’s counterparts by simply being honest, and thankful. It is one of the best songs of the year, and not a better, more necessary year could it have been presented to us. It is a masterpiece, and if it doesn’t move you, then well, I just give up. So give up 4 minutes of your time, and change your life.
But even someone who is tepid on Jamey can see that The Guitar Song deserved a CMA nomination for best album. If the mainstream is going to use Jamey to say, “Look, we do have traditional artists that we accept and promote,” then they need to follow through with it. This may have been Johnson’s only chance at a CMA nomination, and the powers that be blew it.
I can’t make this up folks, there is actually an effort out there to put together what is being called a “country music boy band.” So if you have the ambition to be a musical monkey, then shave your balls, shove a sock down the front of your pants, spike your hair and bleach the tips and get your ass to CountryBoyBandSearch.com to sign up!
In 99 Lives, Hunnicutt creates a circle of wisdom through fearlessly conveying his personal, intimate experiences in life, and by intimating his fears and frailties, and his victories against them. Honesty is the benchmark of all great albums, and 99 Lives’s honesty is unchecked, complimented by the most powerful voice in all of independent country roots.
Late last week it was announced that dozens of local DJ’s from the US’s largest radio station operator Clear Channel were being cut all across the country. The cuts are to regional markets, that cover more rural, outlying communities, or the country, where much of country music’s traditional demographics live.
As simply as I can put it, making the case that spoken word and rapping in music are the same thing is an ignorance-based insult to the artistic integrity and creativity of both spoken word and rap artists, and to the intelligence of anyone who that case is being made to. Battling the infiltration of country rap is hard enough without revising history.
