Railbird Fest Throws Fans for a Loop with 2025 Headliners
21 Comments
Railbird 2025 includes an excellent crop of top-of-the-line independent country and roots artists. But it’s the headliners Railbird has announced that have return patrons chirping
Roundtable Vol 2 & Anti-Country Revisited
9 CommentsWell ladies and gentlemen, we were a week late, but we got the REAL Country Roundtable Volume 2 done. Topics discussed include: Why so many REAL country bands are coming out of the Midwest and Upper Midwest (and not the South). Has the .357 String Band “lost something” since mandolin player Jayke Orvis left. And […]
Preview Entire Songs of Hank III’s New Album !
30 CommentsHank III’s latest record Rebel Within to be released May 25th is now available for preview through Amazon.com, where you can listen to ALL the songs, IN THEIR ENTIRETY! Just CLICK HERE, and navigate over to the player on the right. You’ll want to get over there and get your listen on ASAP, because the […]
Outlaw Shit – The Trial of Billy Joe Shaver
21 CommentsToday is the day that original country music Outlaw Billy Joe Shaver faces trial for shooting 50-year-old Billy Coker in the cheek outside of Papa Joe’s Saloon in Lorena, TX, on March, 31st of 2007. Shaver’s charged with aggravated assault. The incident has been memorialized in the song Where Do You Want It? from the […]
Gretchen Wilson’s “Outlaws & Renegades” (A Rant)
22 CommentsThere is a war going on right now for the heart of country music my friends, and we just had a salvo shot right into our belly. I would love to be sitting here writing about one of the countless original, highly-talented bands out there that Music Row won’t even let sniff it’s panties, but […]
Why Whitey Morgan / Bloodshot Signing is Big
11 CommentsAs I first reported here, Michigan-based honky tonk band Whitey Morgan & The 78’s have signed with Chicago-based independent label Bloodshot Records. Both times I saw them at South by Southwest, their live show did not disappoint. Whitey might be the closest thing to Waylon you can see these days. There’s a lot of bands […]
You Need Ruby Jane In Your Life
25 CommentsCountry music is a funny thing. While on the outside it seems like a pretty “Hee-Yaw!” simple, straightforward artform, country music boasts some of the best maestros that American music has ever seen. Right now there may be half a hundred fiddle players with half their teeth missing, living in the bowls of a Prevost […]
Troops Called to Hank III Concert !!!
18 CommentsI always knew that at some point a Hank III show would get so out of hand that they’d have to call in the big guns to restore order. But fortunately when military might showed up to his concert at the Meridian in Houston on 3/13/10, it was to honor Hank for honoring the troops, […]
Your Opinion: Anti-Country
48 CommentsWe have a few issues facing us in the Outlaw/Underground/Insurgent/True/REAL/Hellbilly/Neo-traditionalist country movement. The first is how many different words are used to describe the music and artists that have created a small, but very strong music scene with a loyal following. Not only are there many terms, but these terms mean different things to different […]
Review- Hellbound Glory Old Highs & New Lows
20 CommentsIn some ways, I should hate Hellbound Glory and their new album, Old Highs and New Lows. I’ve been on the warpath lately against artists and bands who think being REAL country means shoehorning as many drug and whiskey references as possible into your songs. And though there’s not a track on this album that […]
Gretchen Wilson, Josh Thompson Rip Off Black Crowes?
28 CommentsI’ve had a working theory for a while that 75% of what you hear on mainstream country radio today can be traced back to a small handfull of songs by Bob Seger and The Black Crowes. Darn near 1/3 of them can be traced back to Seger’s “Night Moves” alone. Well it might be time […]
Live Review- Slim Cessna’s Auto Club
6 CommentsSeeing Denver’s Slim Cessna’s Auto Club live is a religious experience. And if you’ve ever seen them, you know that calling it “religious” is less of a descriptive tool, and more of a pun. This is one of those bands that I’d heard for years how I must see live, and without question, they lived […]