Country Throwdown Cancels Shows / III Disrupts the Charts
Over a year ago I reported that the Warped Tour’s Kevin Lyman was planning a country tour and in preparation of doing so he was relegating the country music fan to a “40%” statistic, singing the praises of Taylor Swift, and opening an office in Nashville to snort cocaine off of hooker’s bellies with Music Row’s major label execs.
Well now this thing is up and running, and it took even more of a sinister turn when they decided to give this tour a “new Outlaws” flavor by bringing along acts like Eric Church and giving it an emblem that is a mild ripoff of my own. I was hoping to catch the Dallas leg of this, to point and laugh and see the few decent acts that had slipped on the bill, but now the Dallas date has been canceled, along with shows in Houston, San Diego, and Phoenix due to lagging ticket sales. Huh.
Meanwhile the smelly, dirty, foul mouthed degenerate grandson of Hank Williams just crashed the pretty faced pop party at the top of the country charts, ranking #4 in country, and #20 in all of music, selling 17,000 copies of Rebel Within.
It seems the tables have turned, at least in this instance. Hank III is able to chart with virtually no support from radio or media, but with a solid grass roots network and following. Meanwhile Warped Country is canceling dates because they can’t find enough sheep in Chinese-made straw cowboy hats from Wal-Mart to support their bloated infrastructure and overextended budget pushing bad music. (Ryan Bingham maybe being an exception.)
Some day country music will see that us bitchy folks in the underground are their best friends, showing them truly how to farm talent, and how to navigate through the current revolution in digital technology that has ensnared the music business. Or wait, is it really digital music ensnaring Nashville, or is it the grass roots rising up?
“You can grow when you rip your roots out of the ground.”
–Dale Watson
June 4, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
Imagine what the sales would be if he had just a little support from radio, and/or the media.
June 4, 2010 @ 2:05 pm
YEAH BOY !!! i love to hear good news…
June 4, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
HELL MOTHER FUCKIN YES!!!
June 4, 2010 @ 4:41 pm
Whoa! That’s amazing about III ranking 4th in the Billboard charts. I’m assuming they base the ranking on sales as – like Chris says – he’s certainly not getting much radio play anywhere. This also gives him access to a more mainstream audience – I’m sure there will be people who follow the charts wondering who this fellow called Hank III is who has the 4th most popular country album this week. They may just be compelled enough by that to go check out his myspace and experience his music. My copy STILL hasn’t arrived, bloody Amazon. However my ‘Outlaw Radio’ comp is just about worn out – what a magnificent article! So much diversity and awesomeness. Those Country/Warped dudes totally ripped off your logo too!
June 4, 2010 @ 4:58 pm
Right on, go Hank! Number 4 ain’t bad at all, though I’m sure we all agree it deserves number 1. To paraphrase the man himself: “Old number 4 just might be III”!
June 4, 2010 @ 7:51 pm
Rock and Goddamn Roll. Hank 3 taking it all back. W don’t need no damn radio. Who the hell listens to that antique bullshit anyways? The future of music is online,at live shows, and in our players. We can go straight to the web to get the music and that is power. This is what happens when power is in the peoples hands and not the bullshit radio stations. Keep the fight!
June 4, 2010 @ 9:07 pm
I don’t know enough about the billing of that tour to comment, though I can imagine… Rebel Within has grown on me a ton! It took too long for my pre-order to show, so i bought a copy at the local record store last weekend and sure enough it came in the mail the next day… It has, like I said, really grown on me. I still don’t like it as much as the last 3 albums but considering he has said that he hasn’t been writing much, so as to keep Curb from owning his songs, Rebel is a damn good album. Hell, it’s a damn good album without considering ANY of that label bullshit.
June 4, 2010 @ 10:37 pm
FUCK YEAH! REBEL WITHIN KICKS “MIKE” TO THE PROVERBIAL “CURB”!!!
June 5, 2010 @ 5:45 am
great news. nice to be one of the first 17,000.
June 5, 2010 @ 10:59 pm
Triggerman, there is a Great Article I just got from the magazine store here yesterday in the MOJO 200 Anniversary issue of July 2010, there is a huge article about a CONVERSATION BETWEEN TOM WAITS AND HANK III AND I THINK EVERY ONE OF US SHOULD BE ABLE TO READ THIS. There are some great pictures in it and the Reinstate Hank Mission is mentioned. The conversation is awesome and you can maybe look up the site here: http://www.mojo4music.com
It is absolutely great there is an article like this about Hank III, it is a sign the media is showing more and more interest, an important magazine, I can’t tell you how long I am looking for magazines with an article like that and now find one is awesome, he might be mentioned before in a mag but this is a real great one, I hope you can find it.
June 6, 2010 @ 8:22 pm
Restless,
Yeah, we’ve been talking about this over on the message board. Hoping to hunt down a copy of this tomorrow.
June 8, 2010 @ 2:41 pm
I just wanted to say I love the discussions on this website. I am so f’n pumped that Hank 3 has hit it so big. Just 4 or 5 years ago I was doing what everyone else was doing being a zombie to what Nashville was putting out and listening to everything that played over and over again on the radio stations until I went to one of his shows curious since I liked Hank Williams Sr. and Jr. That concert changed my whole way of thinking from then on. I realized there was so much better music out there that what’s spoonfed to ya every day. I am now a huge promoter of all these underground bands that can actually sing and have real things to sing about even though it’s not pretty and prim and proper. If it wasn’t for Hank 3 I would never have found bands like Lucky Tubb, Wayne Hancock, Dale Watson, Scott Biram, Whitey Morgan, and many many others. I also found this whole underground grassroots movement called “red dirt” down in Texas/Oklahoma that I’m really into with artists like Cross Canadian Ragweed, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jason Boland, Jackson Taylor, and many many others. I’ve railed against local radio stations, CMT boards, and many others with my opinion of the state of current country music and why these outlets won’t open their minds to these other bands or provide timeslots to introduce audiences to these other country music genres. I don’t care for most of the mainstream bands outta Nashville but I know everyone has different tastes such as Taylor Swift. Which I don’t care for but I know many people do. Honestly I like having different genres of country music, such as traditional, pop, southern rock, hickhop, rockabilly, bluegrass, etc. I just wished the corporate labels and radio would push all of these subgenres to the masses and not just the pop country. I believe the same way everyone on here believes to preserve the past and not walk away from it.
I actually went to the Country Throwdown Concert over in Noblesville not too long ago mainly to see some of my favorite “red dirt” artists like Ryan Bingham and also to see Jamey Johnson (who I know everyone has their opinion of). I do have to say it was a great show but I can’t see why they ran out of money. It was the most expensive concert I’ve been to. Beers were $7, Alcohol was $9, Food was $13, and water was even $4. Ridiculous in my opinion. I realized these shows are no longer about the music or for the fans when you see people passing out because of the heat because they can’t afford the expensive water alone. They had to have made their money over and over again.
Also can you believe Nickelback is currently #3 on the CMT Top 20! Mainstream country music will allow anything to pass as country nowadays.
June 8, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
Also I forgot didn’t Hank III make it to the top of the Billboard or Soundscan charts last year too when Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood were so popular?
June 8, 2010 @ 4:02 pm
Chris,
He was #2 with Damn Right Rebel Proud, and yes, I believe that same dumb Taylor Swift album was still up there.
July 27, 2010 @ 1:13 am
@Restless…thanks for the info. I love where it says that Hank 3 is “The smelly, dirty, foul mouthed degenerate grandson of Hank Williams” HE IS THE HELLBILLY KING!