Trust me when I say if you go ambling through American college towns, you won’t find anything resembling a dearth of string bands with a bunch of young men and their banjos and fiddles stomping and shouting on stage. What you will find a dearth of are these bands that are actually worth listening to, at least outside of the context of a drunken college town barroom.
Raleigh, North Carolina’s American Aquarium had their van and trailer stolen late last night (Wednesday, 6-25) between 1 AM and 9 AM in Indianapolis at the Wyndham Hotel on the west side of town. The band was in Indianapolis playing a show with the Turnpike Troubadours at the Old National Centre.
At its heart, The Grohl Sessions is the true answer to the “country music must progress” charge regularly levied by mainstream artists like Luke Bryan, Blake Shelton, and Eric Church, to justify their trespasses of mixing country with other genres.The songs of The Grohl Sessions are marvelously complex, yet still with a heart, still with a pentameter that never stops beating….
Bend, Oregon-based roots band Larry & His Flask had their van and trailer with all of their musical gear and many personal possessions stolen in Cayce, South Carolina, just south of Columbia, on Saturday, June 7th after playing a show at the New Brookland Tavern in Columbia. The theft happened at the Riverside Inn at roughly 4 AM in the morning after the band had gone to sleep.
If you asked me point blank who I thought was the best songwriter of our generation regardless of genre, scene, commercial or critical success, I would tell you without hesitation that it is Willy “Tea” Taylor from the interior valley cattle town of Oakdale, CA. Willy “Tea” Taylor is an enigma, while at the same time being the most down-to-earth person you would ever meet.
One of the great things about roots music is its Gothic legacy of cautionary tales, ghost stories, murder ballads, messages to the infirmed, and other such methods of macabre that allow country and roots artists to paint in dark colors when they so choose. This makes roots music one of the best realms to draw from when putting together your Halloween playlist.
Larry & His Flask is an interesting music specimen. The biggest advice I could give to an underground roots band right now would be, “Get away from underground roots if you want to grow,” and Larry & His Flask’s success is the perfect example why. Their 2011 stint on the Warped Tour and taking the time to do things right on the business side….
I actually come from the camp that believes that if Mumford & Sons weren’t so popular, more core roots fans would respect them. But it is really hip to hate and undervalue Mumford right now. Let’s hope that the current backlash doesn’t hurt every band with a banjo, because there’s many great string bands out there that and mix high energy and heartfelt songs into the string band concept.
Many of the bold changes in the direction of popular music begin with artists that are too fey, too polarizing to become popular themselves. So it takes others who understand how to soften music with sensibilities to make it accessible to the masses, and hopefully, if time is on their side, transect the popularity timeline, resulting in superstardom.
I have been struggling to write this article for almost two years, but have been putting it off because there’s some hard things to say, and I didn’t want to “talk down” a movement that was already trying to deal with pretty alarming trends. But I think that especially now, zooming out and trying to be honest and critical in a constructive way is important, because there is positively no doubt that underground country is dying.
Whether it is punk bands that simply interchange their electric instruments for acoustic ones, or bands that have a more traditional country sound, but overload it with “whiskey, devil, and drug” references, parody in the “punk gone country” movement has become a problem primarily by the way these artists can typecast other country punk bands, fans, and entities.
So here it is, the list of albums Saving Country Music deems essential for 2011 listening. Please note this list only includes albums that have been reviewed so far. And as always, your feedback is encouraged. What are your essential albums? What did we miss? What was released in 2011 that deserves a review?
Larry & His Flask from the ultra hippie nouveau town of Bend, OR have been making the rounds on the live circuit for years now, leaving legions of disciples and gallons of sweat behind at every stop. Putting out as much energy as any band has in the history of ever, and a lineup that necessitates shoving multiple tables together at every restaurant the tour van stops at, LAHF’s live show is impressionable to say the least.
We’ve been waiting for a legitimate, Larry Jon Wilson reissue for a long time, but fans of the crazy, punk-infused string band Larry & His Flask have been waiting for a full-on LP release from them for years as well, and finally got it today in the release of All That We Know in digital form, with CD’s to be ready in August.
As the name implies, Hillgrass Bluebilly Records defines the nexus of where hillbilly, country, bluegrass, and blues meet. This rich and diverse environment that has been created in the independent/underground music world embodies all roots music as unified expressions of purity and soul, regardless of the origins. Keith Mallette and co-founder Ryan Tackett have created a burgeoning homespun record label that is getting…
On Saturday night the Hole in the Wall in Austin, TX was transformed into “Dirtyfoot” headquarters for fans, bands and extended family of Hillgrass Bluebilly Records for their Launch Party. Folks from as far as Canada, Seattle, Minnesota, and Boston flew in exclusively for the event and helped pack the walls of the Hole to near capacity, while over 150 people from around the world tuned in through SCM Live to share the experience.
7 bands and 5 hours of music meant both Hole in the Wall’s stages were pressed into service….
Last week an article was posted on No Depression lamenting the glossification of bluegrass. Of course my first thought was to point out bands like Trampled By Turtles, The .357 String Band, Split Lip Rayfield, The Hackensaw Boys, Larry & His Flask, and many others. But aside from that, I think you can make a […]