There’s nothing quite like Luck Reunion. One day each year, Willie Nelson opens his ranch to ticket holders for an absurdly well-curated music festival, erecting stages across the still-standing western town from the set of Red Headed Stranger. Legend has it the script originally called for the town to be burned down, but Willie liked having it on his property so much that he had the ending rewritten to leave the town standing. Each March, Luck, as it’s become known, turns from ghost town into working western town, replete with a functioning saloon, vintage western wear shop, & a food…
1 CommentAuthor: Jon W. Cole
is a contributing writer living in Athens, GA. He podcasts at the68comebackspecial.com. Don't forget to check out his Best of 2013 mixes. He tweets, too: @joncole.
Fly Golden Eagle’s Quartz is a record you’ll want to hand down to your children, and you’ll just have to hope on hope that it doesn’t ruin their lives by making them the coolest little mother fuckers on the block. I mean, seriously, this record could derail the plans you have for their college careers. And yet, it would be cruel to keep them in the dark, wouldn’t it? Get your priorities straight, man. The futures of your hypothetical children depend on it. Quartz is a sexual assault from the 1970s, & you’re not going escape the encounter with less than a…
3 Comments[bandcamp album=2954949496 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=grande] Back in January I wrote about one of my very favorite records of last year, Kentucky-born Sturgill Simpson’s High Top Mountain. Well, ol’ Sturgill is back again with Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, & this time the junket is in full effect. Mainstream country music is so bad right now that a traditional sounding country music finally has a chance to cut through, & a psychedelic country record about DMT & reptile aliens is strangely easy for people to wrap their head around. But I think that boiling it down to a space-aged concept album sells the record short… even without the psychedelic…
3 Comments[O]hio-native* Lydia Loveless often gets tagged as alt-country, but most of the fare on her latest EP would’ve passed as mainstream alternative rock in the ’90s. And I can understand if you took that as a dig, but I mean it in the best way possible. Imagine if you could listen to the Gin Blossoms without any of those guilty feelings. Imagine if you could crank ’em up until the neighbors heard without worrying about your rep, because it was actually cool as shit. Well… that’s what Lydia Loveless is for. It’s peculiar that a 23-year old babe like Lydia…
4 Comments[S]omething you don’t often come across is a perfect song. A perfect song is a simple song… it has to seem effortless, not conspired… almost conversational. Each word of each line has to count for something, like a complete puzzle revealing a larger picture. It needs to contain truths, but not without engaging the imagination. It’s all a delicate balancing act. A perfect song needs both tension & resolution. And like any good work of art, there has to be a focal point… a moment that knocks you on your ass, that the other moments are building towards and are subservient…
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[A]aron Lee Tasjan is my favorite songwriter. Too bad he’s from Ohio.* Thankfully he’s up and moved down to East Nashville (after a stint in NYC), which means bi-monthly shows down here in Georgia. Aaron has a lot going on… between touring furiously as a solo act, he finds time as the new lead guitarist for Atlanta band Drivin N Cryin** (replacing Sadler Vaden, who’s out on tour with Jason Isbell), & he performed on all the Kevn Kinney produced tracks that Cheryl sings on the new season of FX’s Archer. Additionally, you can also find him slingin’ guitar in a handful of other acts… most recently Tyler James’ Escondido, LA-based indie supergroup Everest, &… well, you get the picture. On top of all that, he was honored last year by ASCAP as part of the Songwriters: The Next Generation program at the Kennedy Center in DC. Honestly, I think he spends too much time as a guitar slinger for hire & not enough time as a solo songwriter superstar, but apparently singing & songwriting doesn’t always pay.
Aaron has two EPs forthcoming, both will be out by the end of the year. The first track released from the first EP, Crooked River Burning, is Don’t Walk Away, which documents the struggles of being a singer/songwriter in an over saturated digital market that values plastic tits over diminished chords or turns of phrase (my words, not his). Aaron seemingly farts out classic lines in his sleep, so this track features a handful of waking gems. “Where does a sad song go to cry? / You sing it so much the words get shy / Turns out nothin’ but another hard try / Just shut up & keep hope alive.”
Don’t give up, Aaron. We’re counting on you. Aaron’s upcoming tour dates are listed below.
* #goblue
** Aaron played lead guitar on the best material Drivin N Cryin has put out in years, the new Songs For the Turntable ep that you can get on iTunes. Correction: Sadler Vaden played on the recordings, but you can hear Aaron putting his stamp on those licks at their live shows.
[bandcamp album=3469043521 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=grande] [I] spent a few days in Nashville recently, & I stopped by the Country Music Hall of Fame only because they moved Hatch Show Print into the building (which is goddamn shame & a half). But as I was walking around to the side entrance I noticed they had a big sign out front promoting a new Bakersfield exhibit, which I thought was terribly ironic. Michael Gray, the exhibit’s curator, recently gave an interview on NPR’s World Cafe & he said that Bakersfield was “maybe not so much a reaction to Nashville, but an alternative…
3 CommentsStanding Room Only Producer Jay Clifford once told French Camp’s principle songwriter, Owen Beverly, that it’s easier to write about a place once you’ve gotten away from it. Owen would prove the point by moving to Brooklyn and penning a track where he sings “I miss the south” nearly a dozen times. Sage advice, perhaps. But while Odd Particle’s common thread may be Owen’s pining, the undercurrent–the songs themselves–seems to want for little if anything at all. Perhaps for the first time Owen’s songs seem fully realized. As much as Owen wears his southern heart on his sleeve, and though…
2 Comments[bandcamp track=2213293563 bgcol=FFFFFF linkcol=4285BB size=grande] Aaron Lee Tasjan is one of those musicians who are like magnets. You know, those in-demand hired hands that entire scenes end up forming around, but only musicians seem to listen to. As such, it’s hard to not just be bowled over by Aaron’s songwriting & guitar chops. I could nerd out on his wordplay (Well I had a little girl & she was fine / Pretty as a penny, but she turned on a dime) or gush over his structure or list all of the ridiculous musicians he’s played with, but proficiency or accreditation…
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