When I fill out my MySpace REAL Country Awards, without question Rachel Brooke and Lonesome Wyatt’s collaboration A Bitter Harvest will make an appearance, or two or three. Well they have been compiling dates and have just announced their complete “Bitter Harvest” tour, appropriately starting in the spooky month of Rocktober (horns up). Despite my […]
If you’re like me, you hate MySpace . . . BUT. There is possibly nothing better for checking out bands, staying in tune with what your favorite bands are doing, and finding whatever information you desire about a band. It is all right there: a media player with sample songs, tour dates, band members, influences, […]
Austin, Texas band Black Eyed Vermillion, comprised of Hank III screamo man Gary Lindsey, and at any time Stevie Tombstone, Killene Tombstone, Bircho Birch on drums, Joe Buck, Andy Gibson, and Fritz from Whiskeydick (and others), have released their first full length album “Hymns for Heretics”. The first time I heard Black Eyed Vermillion it […]
So the pop star/actor to “go country” this week, is …drum roll please … 80’s bubblegum synth-pop teen idol “Tiffany.” Thanks to Declared Ungovernable for sniffing this story out on The Boot. The first thing I though of when I heard “Tiffany” was this stupid head/hand thing I do in a mocking way whenever I […]
This is the first in a series in support of Record Store Day’s Vinyl Saturday this Sep. 5th. This is in response to this CMT blog called “Sugarland, Wal-Mart Are Not the Bad Guys,” which admits that Wal-Mart is running local record stores out of business but asserts it is not a bad guy for […]
Wayne “The Train” Hancock has announced that he has a new lead guitar player, and his name is Matt Thomas. Matt replaces James Hunnicutt who toured with Wayne for a stint, and will be playing with the Hard Money Saints on the West Coast in September. Matt Thomas is from Austin, and the word from […]
The last few days has seen a small flurry of news concerning the movement to Reinstate Hank Williams to the Grand Ole Opry. The online petition is about to crest 40,000 signatures (or it might already have by the time you read this), which was a goal of the Reinstaters to reach by the end […]
For whatever reason, over the last few years Europe has become a huge support base for REAL country music. Bands that can barely scratch by in the Stars and Stripes are treated like top notch celebrities over the pond, with larger, more attentive and appreciative crowds and better pay. I have also met a lot […]
You may or may have not noticed I haven’t been around much in the past couple of weeks. Thanks for all the emails of concern {actually, I receive not a one 🙁 } but no, the flying monkeys that Curb Records dispatched to silence me did not find my hideout, and Nashville’s lawyers still haven’t […]
Back in the mid 70’s-the first time country music was saved- The Outlaws of country like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings found a home and harbor from Nashville’s ill ways in the Austin, TX singer-songwriter scene. People like Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphy, Townes Van Zandt, and Ray Wylie Hubbard had made Austin a […]
Last week the pop country world was rocked when the duo Brooks and Dunn announced they were breaking up. Though the duo has never had any particular reason to be in my crosshairs, information that came out in the various stories about the breakup painted a clear picture of the overly commercial approach that the […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about George Strait lately. Though I’ve never been a big fan of his music, he seems to be an exception to some of the rules that govern Music Row. Yes, he’s sold millions of albums and is all over commercial radio and CMT, but he also gone out of his […]
If I had to pick one stand out performer out of the dozen plus acts I saw at Pickathon outside of Portland last weekend, it would be Justin Townes Earle. I was lucky enough to be able to see him three different times, and after his first show we sat down for a quick interview. […]
Today was the day in 1952 that Hank Williams, the King of Country music, was fired from the Grand Ole Opry for missing rehearsals due to his excessive use of alcohol. The Opry promised that they would Reinstate Hank Williams after he sobered up, but Hank Williams died New Year’s Day of 1953, and was […]
The thing I like about the one man bands like Joe Buck and Scott H. Biram is the abominable amount of energy they put into their music. It is rare to see an individual member of a band with as much energy as a one man band, or a one man band that doesn’t have […]
I normally try to answer questions here not ask them, and you’d think that after running a website called “Saving Country Music” for as long as I have I would have asked this question before. And I’m not asking this question rhetorically either. I really want to know, is country music dead? I began to […]
Well I’m back from Pickathon. Had an amazing time, saw some great artists, met a lot of great people. Over the next few days (and weeks maybe) I’ll be talking about the bands I saw and people I met, and will share some interviews with you I did. Instead of boring you with a whole […]
It was one of those times when I had to reach over and pinch myself: here I was interviewing none other than Wayne “The Train” Hancock. It went down behind The Mesa Theater in Grand Junction, CO on 7-12-09 as part of Johny Wrong’s First Annual Hootenanny (to read the review of the show click […]
I am very happy to announce that Big G’s Texas Roadshow has teamed up with savingcountrymusic.com, and now on Big G’s Page (located on the site’s top gray bar) you can hear Big G’s legendary interviews with big name guests! And this ain’t Connie Chung interviewing your favorite artists people, oh no. I know a […]
Jashie P of Outlaw Radio (who has Scott H. Biram as a guest for the show TONIGHT 7/28 !!) helped me confirm a few days ago that Jayke Orvis, founding and former member of .357 String Band, has now landed with the psychobilly outfit The Goddamn Gallows. I was happy to hear this, because when […]
(A Bitter Harvest is a collaboration between Rachel Brooke and Lonesome Wyatt of Those Poor Bastards. As the release date approached for this album, I began to worry that maybe my expectations were too high, and I was possibly hyping it to the point where it could only be a letdown. But what made this […]
We don’t talk nearly enough about The Reverend Horton Heat around here, but since it’s been about five years since he released an album, there hasn’t been much reason to. But the Rev. has a new project coming out on September 1st, Laughin’ and Cryin’, and the “Deluxe” version of this album will include a […]
CMT.com is reporting that perennial cash cow Hank Williams Jr. is planning to 86 Curb Records as his label. Hank Jr., who has been close personal friends with Mike Curb in the past and has been on the label for over 25 years, is leaving because he feels he is not being given the promotional […]
If you do not know who James Hunnicutt is, then you need to take care of that. This is one of the premier guitar pickers out there, and a good singer/songwriter in his own right. You might remember talking about him in my review of the Wayne Hancock show last week. He is out on […]