Muddy Roots 2014 Line-up

Aug 29th-31st, 2014 Cookeville, TN.

Early bird tickets will sell out at $85 a ticket. Next price tier is $125 for pre-sale and $150 at the gate. Price includes free camping, free hot showers, and although there are 2 beer bars on site you are permitted to B.Y.O.B. if you are legal drinking age. There are mini cabins available on site for rent, tents for rent and hotels just 10 miles away in town. We encourage you to bring your vintage campers, buses, and trailers. There are no rv hookups but you may bring generators.

BUY YOUR MUDDY ROOTS TICKETS NOW AT THIS LINK!

The Sonics, The Blasters, Mudhoney, Bobby Bare, The Weirdos, Shack Shakers, Pokey Lafarge, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Possessed By Paul James, Sean Wheeler & Zander Schloss, ANTiSEEN, 

The Builders and Butchers, Reverend Beat-Man, Goddamn Gallows, Elmo Williams & Hezekiah Early, The Tillers, Terry “Harmonica” Bean, Left Lane Cruiser, Lydia Loveless, Greg Garing, Blackbird Raum, Those Poor Bastards, Hillbilly Casino, J.D. Wilkes & The Dirt Daubers, Buzz Jumpers, James Hunnicutt, Joe Huber, A Man Called Stu, Husky Burnette, Call Me Bronco, Calamity Cubes, Last False Hope, Lonewolf OMB, T Junior, Joe Buck Yourself, Hooten Hallers, Rachel Brooke, The Whistle Pigs, Dead Soldiers, Viva Le Vox, The Hardin Draw, Hellfire Revival, Hangdog Hearts, Gravel Road, Matt Woods, Dave Arcari, Gladezmen, Ten Foot Polecats, Glade City Rounders, The Dinosaur Truckers, JT Oglesby, Richie Owens & The Farm Bureau, Rickett Pass, Gabe Zander, Woody Pines, Lou Shields, The Black Rose Phantoms, Everymen, Joey Henry’s Dirty Sunshine Club, Clem McGillicutty & The Burnouts, The Misery Jackals, Tilford Sellers, Henry’s Rifle, Sweet GA Brown, Imperial Rooster, Deadly Lo-Fi, Knox County Jug Stompers, Wicklow Atwater, Whiskey Hill Swillers, Madpolecats, Tex Railers Doomtown

*Poster illustrated by Meat and 3 Printing in Nashville, TN.

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant

A Thanksgiving tradition in our household and many others I'm sure is listening to Arlo Guthrie's Alice's Restaurant and watching the movie. Originally released in 1967 off of the album "Alices Restaurant". Happy Thanksgiving Sing-along!

It was used in the movie "Alices Restaurant" in 1969.

Guthrie also benefited from the fact that the late ’60s were a time when the rules for pop music had loosened to the point that “Alice’s Restaurant”, essentially an 18-minute monologue bookended by refrains that turn out to be non sequiturs, could gain great popularity. “I was adding to it, and if it was funny and it was true, I kept it,” Guthrie said of the song’s evolution. “And if it wasn’t funny and people didn’t respond to it, I dropped it. And so it was really–you know, it was performance art that I just memorized the best parts of.”

The first part of the story, a tale of small-town law enforcement run amok against the 60’s counterculture, actually happened to Guthrie, even though he added some exaggerated comic touches for effect. He was indeed arrested in Massachusetts for illegally dumping garbage for friends who lived in a former church, was brought before a blind judge, and had to pay a small fine.

Guthrie pretty much made up the second half of the song, a surreal visit to a U.S. Draft inspection station in New York, but the spirit of the story, that he was ineligible to serve in Vietnam because of his littering offense, was true. That bit of topicality meant that this shaggy-dog story hit home for a lot of folks even as Guthrie’s dry humor had them in hysterics.

This rendition of it was done by Arlo in the 90's.

ALICE MAY BROCK, born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 28, 1941. A Pisces … Grew from a difficult child to a juvenile delinquent to a regular (irregular) person … Spent a few years in high school …. reform school … fancy school …. Moved to the Lower East Side, then to the green greener Berkshires … Married crazy Ray D. Brock (picked up in old Cedar Street Tavern) … Worked as a librarian at the Stockbridge School … Bought a church … sang songs … Fooled around … Cooked good good food with a smile and other expressions … Bought a crummy diner …. Turned it into a crazy-yummy-cozy restaurant … Got tired … Got divorced … Got famed by Arlo Guthrie, an old friend who wrote the song “Alice’s Restaurant,” which inspired Arthur Penn to direct the movie Alice’s Restaurant–about Alice and Ray and Arlo and the Scene … now in the past. Thru it all Alice is a real live human bean–Still foolin’ around and still cookin’ …

Three Days Dark Debut Self-Titled Album

Three Days Dark is the solo project from ex-Deep Sea Green songwriter and frontman Trent Halliday. Deep Sea Green is/was one of my favorite UK garage rock bands, and while I'm saddened they are no more, Trent's new project will fill the void, drawing influences from 60's/70's garage, blues, and psyche, Three Days Dark adds some kaleidoscopic takes on electronica noise on some songs and robust bluesy feel on others all tied together with great rock guitar riffs and Trent’s laid back spectral vocals. The groovy continues on.

Tracklist:
1. Hey!
2. One Stitch at a Time
3. The Breaks
4. It's Easy to Say
5. Sunblushed
6. Supersun Exploder
7. Juno Sleeps
8. Come Back Blue Sky
9. Clean Away
10. The Waves Awake

The Harmonica Lewinskies FREE NEW Single 'Jesus Christ is Just Rock and Roll'

The Harmonica Lewinskies New York City's barrel of fun and troubadours of saturated sound have dropped the first single from their upcoming new album due for release in early ‘14, 'Jesus Christ is Just Rock and Roll' is a rollicking rocker with big horns, raucous vocals and a swinging rhythm, you’ll be singing along on this one. Go ahead and grab this free download!    

Released 26 November 2013
Dan 'DMC' Lewinsky - Lead Vox, Rhythm Guitar
Bill 'Denver' Lewinsky - Lead Guitar, Vox
Zeb 'After Grogg Bog' Lewinsky - Bass, Vox
Ollie 'Twist' Lewinsky - Drums, Vox
Rob 'Bear-Toes' Lewinsky - Vox
Chris 'Pea' Lewinsky - Trumpet, Vox
Marco 'Stewart' Lewinsky - Trombone, Vox
Jake 'Tiny' Lewinsky - Sax, Vox
Oliver 'Dude, You're Gonna Be A Dad' Lewinsky - Piano, Synth, Vox

Sir Psych Free EP 'The Sir'

Born into a musical household and having traversed the musical landscape for three decades Sir Psych landed firmly in the realm of Psychedelia, with L.A. Al in Smoking Trees and in his solo endeavors, Sir Psych casts his psychedelic spell like no other can.  For his birthday yesterday ‘The Sir’ dropped a FREE seven song EP of mystic groovy ear worms.

If you dig it, hit the download buttons and give him a thank you and birthday wish on twitter

Check out Birmingham, Alabama's Banditos

"Banditos are famously eclectic, paying tribute to a little Aretha here, a little CCR there, with a tidbit of Squirrel Nut Zippers packed around the edges. While such a myriad of influences would bury a lesser band in tuneless muck, Banditos use their disparate influences to forge a more assured identity. Though they recall a dozen bands, they sound like none so much as themselves. The instrumentation is as ambitious as it is deftly executed, mingling upright bass with kazoo and banjo while the soul-spangled howl of frontwoman Mary plays counterpoint to a deceivingly sparse guitar, drenched in a quantity of reverb and delay not often associated with “danceable.” All this would mean crap if Banditos couldn’t play, but these mothers can choogle. It’s always the mark of a good band to be able to play the hell out of three chords and a breakdown, and Banditos shake it down like John Fogerty."

Band Members are:
Stephen Alan Pierce II
Timothy Steven Corey Parsons
Mary Beth Richardson
Jeffery David Salter
Jeffery Daniel Vines
Randy Taylor Wade

Fan them on Reverbnation and get these four free downloads.

Free Electronic Press Kits from ReverbNation.com

Scowlin Owl - Debut EP These Strange Companions

Scowlin Owl is Nina Lovelace (vocals, rhythm guitar, flute), Yvonne Bordon (vocals, electric guitar), Karina Zakri (vocals, bass), and Sally Gainsbury (violin, vocals). Nina started up the band 2011 with the mission to form a female-led dramatic musical collective based on harmony vocals and folk-style storytelling. Nina first hooked up with Yvonne who, armed with her instrumental genius, immediately shared the vision. Soon after Scowlin Owl found their high harmony vocalist Karina Zakri and finally Nina’s friend Sally Gainsbury decided to throw in her fiddlin’ lot with the band. Since then ‘The Owl’ have been gigging on the London folk and alt-country scene and just released their debut EP, ‘These Strange Companions’
With wonderful harmonies and unique storytelling combined with British and American folk influences they soar in an effortless somewhat minimalist sound that is both haunting and uplifting.


Tracklist: 
1. Message From The Psalms
2. These Strange Companions
3. Grey
4. Poker Alice
5. Mifune
6. Sugawara And The Sunflower

Englishman - “Unsafe & Sound"

 Andrew English & Justin Craig (not shown - Matt Duncan) photo credit: Sarah Law

Englishman's new album, according to the band, “Unsafe & Sound began as a feeling that the ways in which we participate in the human experience are changing too rapidly to process.  It began with a response not unlike a viewer has during the course of a dystopian movie marathon.  The songs on this record are not offered as suggestions or wisdom, but as replacement windows of differing sizes and opacities.  They are newly available lenses of undetermined accuracy.”

The songs were recorded in 2011 in Lexington, KY, in a studio fit up for occasion, then mixed by Justin Craig in Brooklyn, NY.  The members of the band are Andrew English, Justin Craig and Matt Duncan.  The finished recordings reflect an overall urgency for preservation and nerve that the previous self-titled album does not.  During ten days of recording, a fire was kept outside of the recording space and continued to burn for the duration of the recording.  It was tended throughout the day and rekindled each morning with care.  It even rained heavily one night.

Englishman's Unsafe & Sound is the follow-up to their 2010 self-titled full-length studio album, and is now available on Limited Edition Vinyl and Digital formats via their bandcamp page.

1. Fill a Silo  
2. Kids & Bipolars  
3. More Than Insects  
4. Fiercest Warriors  
5. At 25  
6. We're the Monsters  
7. Dear Life

American Folk Blues Festivals 1963-1966: The British Tours

The American Folk Blues Festival was a music festival that toured Europe as an annual event for several years beginning in 1962. It introduced audiences in Europe, including the UK, to leading blues performers of the day such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson, most of whom had never previously performed outside the US. The tours attracted substantial media coverage, including TV shows, and contributed to the growth of the audience for blues music in Europe.

German jazz publicist Joachim-Ernst Berendt first had the idea of bringing original African-American blues performers to Europe. Jazz had become very popular, and rock and roll was just gaining a foothold, and both genres drew influences directly back to the blues. Berendt thought that European audiences would flock to concert halls to see them in person.
Promoters Horst Lippmann and Fritz Rau brought this idea to reality. By contacting Willie Dixon, an influential blues composer and bassist from Chicago, they were given access to the blues culture of the southern United States. The first festival was held in 1962, and they continued almost annually until 1972, after an eight-year hiatus reviving the festival in 1980 until its final performance in 1985.

The concerts featured some of the leading blues artists of the 1960s, such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Sonny Boy Williamson, some playing in unique combinations such as T-Bone Walker playing guitar for pianist Memphis Slim, Otis Rush with Junior Wells, Sonny Boy Williamson with Muddy Waters. The Festival DVDs include the only known footage of Little Walter, and rare recordings of John Lee Hooker playing harmonica.
Attendees at Manchester in 1962, the first ever venue for the festival in Britain, included Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Brian Jones and Jimmy Page. Subsequent attendees at the first London festivals are believed to have also included such influential musicians as Eric Burdon, Eric Clapton, and Steve Winwood.[citation needed] Collectively these were the primary movers in the blues explosion that would lead to the British Invasion.
Sonny Boy Williamson's visit to London with the 1963 festival led to him spending a year in Europe including recording the Sonny Boy Williamson and The Yardbirds album,[1] (first released on Star-Club Records in 1965), and recording with The Animals.

Recorded live for TV broadcast throughout Britain, these historic performances have been unseen for nearly 40 years. Filmed with superb camera work and pristine sound, 14 complete performances and 4 bonus performances are included by Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Lonnie Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Lightnin' Hopkins, Sugar Pie DeSanto, Howlin' Wolf, Big Joe Turner, Junior Wells, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Between 1963 and 1966 huge British tours were undertaken by the likes of Muddy Waters, Lightnin' Hopkins, Howlin' Wolf, and Junior Wells. This release in the American Folk-Blues Festivals gathers footage from these tours, providing an amazing document of a historic time.

Watch while you still can and definitely get the DVD

Available on DVD:

The American Folk Blues Festival 1962–1966, Vols 1–3 (black and white, recorded live at the Baden-Baden studio of the German public radio and TV network ARD, and (volume 3) of the Danish national broadcaster. The DVD was by Reelin' In The Years Productions.

American Folk-Blues Festival: The British Tours 1963–1966

Feel Bad For You Mix Tape November 2013 Revisited

Well a new month is right around the corner, so lets revisit Feel Bad For You November Mix Tape.

There was no theme so it was going to be a free-for-all, but then we got the sad news that Lou Reed had passed away. Many of us contributed songs in memory of Lou. So what you’ve got is a mixtape that starts off with some random, but quite good songs and then morphs into a farewell mix for Lou.

Listen, Download, Leave a Comment if you wish.

1. Title: Black Star (Radiohead cover)

Artist: Gillian Welch
Album (Year): Black Star EP (2006)
Submitted by: @TheSecondSingle
Comments: A beautiful cover of a great song from my favorite Radiohead album. Very hard for anyone to take a Radiohead song and make it their own, particularly an alt. country artist, but Welch does it.
[Editor’s note: I missed this last month, for the covers mix, so added it this month]

2. Title: Finally
Artist: The Frames
Album (Year): Burn the Maps (2004)
Submitted By: April @ Now This Sound Is Brave
Comments: With the stellar success of the film “Once”, Glen Hansard has become known mostly for his sweet, melancholic journeys through the heart with Maketa Irglova. But Hansard has been making music with his band the Frames for over 20 years, and the thing that I love most about the Frames’ music is the unvarnished anger that comes through at times. Hansard is an amazing conduit for strong emotion, and the song “Finally” acted as a cleansing fire for me in the aftermath of a relationship. Because sometimes spitting rage is the only thing that helps you get over and get on with it.

3. Title: Normal Person
Artist: Arcade Fire
Album: Reflektor (2013)
Submitted By: @tincanman2010
Comments: A big, bold song that holds its own with the best of Neil Young’s grunge period, a stompin’ corker that builds energey as it plays. The keen self-promoters have been performing in ‘secret’ shows and late-night TV as The Reflektors.

4. Title: Preach
Artist: American Dirt
Album: Heavy Thought And Riddle (2013)
Submitted By: Romeo Sid Vicious
Comments: Had some rough times lately. This song, along with a few others, really helped me through some of those nights. I really like the sentiment this one brings.

5. Title: Heavy Music Part 1
Artist: Bob Seger & The Last Heard
Album (1967): Single
Submitted By: @popa2unes
Comments: Released as a single by Bob Seger & The Last Heard in the summer of 1967, two different vocal takes of the song (using the same instrumental track) were released together on either side of the single, with the names “Heavy Music Part 1″ and “Heavy Music Part 2.” Both versions were later edited together and released on Seger’s album Smokin’ O.P.’s, long after his tenure with The Last Heard. An eight minute fourteen second-long live version of the song is featured on the album Live Bullet with the Silver Bullet Band. The bass line, played by both a bass guitar and a piano, which producer Doug Brown created for the song after Seger had written the lyric.

6. Title: Liberty Bell
Artist: The Gathering
Album (year): How to Measure a Planet? (1999)
Submitted By: hoosier buddy
Comments: This song is another reason to love The Netherlands. Also, it makes me think of Deborah Berg of Eye To Eye, another voice that goes through me like a scythe through butter.

7. Title: Come the Meantimes
Artist: Elvis Costello & The Roots
Album (year): Wise Up Ghost (2013)
Submitted By: @philnorman
Comments: Elvis is still the king. What a cool collaboration. This whole record just jams.

8. Title: Hold Tight
Artist: Fats Waller
Album (year): Bluebird B-10116 (1939)
Submitted By: @Truersound
Comments: Fuck this shit, I want some seafood

9. Title: Duck and Cover
Artist: Glen Phillips
Album: Winter Pays For Summer (2005)
Submitted By: @toomuchcountry
Comments: No official theme for November 2013 FBFY. But this song has a bit of a Thanksgivingish feel to me. A solid number from the former frontman for Toad The Wet Sprocket.

10. Title: More the man I used to be
Artist: The Tremolo Beer Gut
Album (year): Nous Sommes The Tremolo Beer Gut….Qui Le Fuck Etes Vous (2008)
Submitted By: @annieTUFF
Comments: Sometimes I wanna wear my hair in a beehive hair-do.

11. Title: Can’t Slow Down
Artist: Randy Rogers Band
Album (Year): Rollercoaster (early 2000′s)
Submitted by: Gorrck
Comments: Randy Rogers has been getting heavy rotation on my pandora list. Got this album several years ago and it still holds up well.

12. Title: Days of Heaven
Artist: Phosphorescent
Album: Live at KEXP @Pickathon (2013)
Submitted by: @TheSecondSingle
Comments: Great acoustic cover of a fairly obscure Randy Newman demo (only released on Newman’s box set).

13. Title: Pawnshops
Artist: Todd Farrell Jr and The Dirty Birds
Album (year): All My Heros Live In Vans (2013)
Submitted By: @TheOtherBrit
Comments: I love this song because it’s about loving all the same music I love.

14. Title: Waiting For The Man
Artist: Velvet Underground
Album (1969): Live at Boston Tea Party, Jan. 10, 1969
Submitted By: @popa2unes
Comments: There are rebels, then there is Lou Reed

15. Title: Street Hassle: Waltzing Matilda/Street Hassle/Slipaway
Artist: Lou Reed
Album (year): Street Hassle (1978)
Submitted By: Rockstar Aimz
Comments: Is everyone submitting Lou Reed this month? Good! This crazy song is the embodiment of Lou Reed – it’s a mini-rock opera with a killer orchestral string riff, noise rock on top of the strings, storytelling, and Dylan-esque vocals. Throw in an uncredited vocal by Bruce Springsteen, and overlay late 1970s New York’s drug and economic problems, and you have a poetic masterpiece.

16. Title: Lady Day
Artist: Lou Reed
Album (year): 1974-05-14 Konserthuset Stockholm, Sweden [bootleg]
Submitted By: hoosier buddy
Comments: band members were Lou Reed – vocals, Danny Weis – guitar, Prakash John – bass guitar, Penti “Whitey” Glan – drums, Michael Fonfara – keyboards

17. Title: I’m Waiting For My Man
Artist: Lou Reed
Album (year): 1974-05-14 Konserthuset, Stockholm, Sweden [bootleg]
Submitted By: hoosier buddy

18. Title: Egg Cream
Artist: Lou Reed
Album: Set The Twilight Reeling (1996)
Submitted By: The Mad Mackerel Music Blog
Comments: Like many others I’m sure, Lou Reed was one of those momentous musical discoveries that you make when you know immediately it will shape your listening habits profoundly. From The Velvets debut through to his collection of great 70s albums, Lou Reed soundtracked much of my teenage years and for that I will always be grateful. Even now any band submitting music to our blog claiming a VU influence will automatically get a listen. His death was a prompt to trawl back through those memories and to dust off and rediscover some great tunes that had been unplayed for too long – I’ve picked Egg Cream from Set The Twilight Reeling because its squalling, fuzzy angry guitar set against a nostalgic Brooklyn memory of frothy egg creams is as perfect a contradiction as the great man himself.

19. Title: Sunday Morning
Artist: The Velvet Underground & Nico
Album (year): The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Submitted by: Simon @ www.beat-surrender.com
Comments: First track from the first album.

20. Title: Sunday Morning
Artist: Elizabeth Cook
Album (year): Balls (2007)
Submitted by: Simon @ www.beat-surrender.com
Comments: Had thought about submitting Elizabeth Cook’s lovely cover of The Velvet Underground’s ‘Sunday Morning’ for the FBFY cover track last month – so i’ve included it as a ‘bonus’ track to this months submission, hoping that Scott will let me get away with it [NOTE: Scott let him get away with it  ]

21. Title: Heroin
Artist: The Velvet Underground & Nico
Album (year): The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)
Submitted by: @BoogieStudio22
Comments: One of my (and my oldest daughter’s; I raised her right  ) favorite VU songs.

22. Title: Dime Store Mystery
Artist: Lou Reed
Album: New York (1989)
Submitted By: @BoogieStudio22
Comments: New York was the first Lou Reed album I ever heard. Yeah… I know. Late to the game. Lots of great songs, but this is my favorite off this album.

The Devil Makes Three - ‘I’m A Stranger Here’

Pete Bernhard- Guitarist

Lucia Turino- Bassist

Cooper McBean- Guitarist

The Devil Makes Three are everything I dig, a norish flavor with hints of Nola jazz and ole timey strings, great vocals combined with a layed back porch rocking sound of accomplished musician's just stretching their legs for a spell.
They ramble along on 'A Moments Rest, and 'Goodbye Old Friend, get your booty's jiggling on 'Forty Day's' and 'Dead Body Moving' get your hands clapping and feets stompin' on 'Stranger' and 'Hallelu' give ya a little rock fix on 'Worse or Better,'' 'Hand Back Down' and 'Mr. Midnight' and turn on the hootenanny hoedown with 'Spinning Like A Top'  It all feels good and hits the spot.

Available on CD, Vinyl and iTunes

FreshGrass Festival - Video » Shot at a NYC subway station, featuring the new song Hallelu.

The Devil Makes Three performs "Walk On Boy" live at the 2013 Pickathon Pumphouse Sessions

Upcoming The Devil Makes Three Shows
The Fillmore
December 28, 2013
9pm, $35 (all ages)
The Devil Makes Three
The Fillmore
December 29, 2013
9pm, $35 (all ages)

Jay Woodward - Letters We Told

Recorded in his home studio, Sierra Nevada Records, Jay Woodward approached the making of this concept album as an art project, and a letter, having a written correspondence like flow to it.

“The title, ‘Letters We Told,’ Jay says, came about as a throwback to the original and most elegant form of correspondence. During the time of writing this album, I began writing letters to friends and family that lived across America and the world. The goal was to keep in touch, but in a way that avoided the brash, shallow form technology encourages. What I found is better described with an analogy: Writing a letter is like wearing a suit or elegant dress, your appearance transforms your mindset. I enjoy that mindset which is what I tried to capture on this album. Hopefully others will absorb this feeling too.”

Tracklist: 
1. Mandolina
2. Garden in the Sun
3. Howl
4. The Truth
5. Believe the Honest in Your Veins
6. I Will Be Glad
7. Little Bird
8. Don't Fall Asleep
9. Letters We Told

Savannah Stopover Music Festival Announces Initial Lineup

Weekend - Small Black  - Those Darlins - Speedy Ortiz - Public Service Broadcasting - Matrimony - The Weeks - Tweens - Ski Lodge - Ex Hex - Big UPS - Starlight Girls - Bear Hands - Miniature Tigers - St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Caitlin Rose - The Belle Game - Hurray for the Riff Raff - T Hardy Morris - Pile -You Won't - Clear Plastic Masks - Bleeding Rainbow - ARP - Los Colognes - River Whyless - PitchBlak Brass Band - Milagres - The Whiskey Gentry - this mountain - Raccoon Fighter - Weekender - The Teen Age - Easter Island - Good Graeff - Thomas Wynn & The Believers - The Silver Palms, more TBA

Savannah Stopover Music Festival is a three-day festival taking place the weekend prior to SXSW in Savannah's famed historic district. Dates for the 2014 Festival are March 6-8. Savannah Stopover Music Festival launched in 2011 with the intention to give bands, en route to SXSW, the right set of circumstances to "stopover" in Savannah to perform in the midst of the South's most beautiful, vibrant, and creative small city. Today, Savannah Stopover Music Festival has evolved into one of the most significant emerging music festivals in the United States.

Tickets for Savannah Stopover Music Festival are on sale now HERE! Single Day Passes are $30 along with 3 Day General Admission Festival Passes at $75 and 3 Day VIP Passes at $125.

From founder Kayne Lanahan, "We're thrilled to launch our fourth year of Savannah Stopover with such an exciting initial lineup. Our focus continues to be on maintaining an affordable music festival experience for the region, showcasing outstanding emerging National talent, and luring newcomers to one of the most beautiful historic districts in the world! With the enormity of major music festivals, comes the exorbitant prices, and we've continued to see the joy of discovery missing. At Stopover, you might find your next favorite band in a small dive bar, the ballroom of a 19th century mansion, an outdoor beer garden, or a haunted cemetery. It's like no place else on earth."

Savannah Stopover Music Festival takes place in the historic district of Savannah, GA March 6-8, 2014.

More information at Savannah Stopover Music Festival

Turn off your television NEW Release - Save All The Liars

Turn off your television is a three man band from Sweden with influences in the 60s, 70s and the 90s. Inspired by the likes of Sparklehorse, Luna, Cracker and Grand Archives many people describe their music as soft melodic folk rock with simple and memorable hooks. Imagine easy-going tunes with strong vocal harmonies and guitar-driven acoustic americana, that is seamlessly embellished with the whiffs of harmonica and slight psychedelia now and then. Then blend it with some swedish depression and you have songs that spill across your ears like a gentle stream, much like the soothing tones of nature it self. Some people might call it gentle Seattle rock, while others rather refer to the music as cool slow-wave or even altcountry.

While their previous releases were excellent on their third full length 'Save All The Liars' the Malmö trio have found their groove.

Tracklist:
1. Save all the liars
2. Strange world
3. A writer's cramp
4. Broke millionairs
5. The toy poet
6. My little darkness of bright
7. Between the lines
8. Nothing
9. Running makes no sense at all
10. The loudness war

released 21 November 2013

Vikesh Kapoor debut album, The Ballad Of Willy Robbins

Following a spur-of-the-moment cross-country trip with a pair of fiery European girls, Vikesh Kapoor left school for a brief yet inspiring stint as a mason’s apprentice. The America he had previously known resided narrowly between his childhood home in rural Pennsylvania and the New England university he left home for. Alongside his parents’ own immigrant struggles, these experiences quickly witnessed Kapoor to the scope of the American dream.

A few years later, Kapoor performed at Howard Zinn’s memorial service in Boston, in front of Zinn’s family and colleagues (including Noam Chomsky). Roused by Zinn’s lifelong battle against class/race injustice, Kapoor spent the next two years in Portland, Oregon working on his full-length debut record. The Ballad Of Willy Robbins, a concept album loosely based on a newspaper article, chronicles the brutal but hopeful story of a working class man who slowly loses everything: ambitions, health, family and shelter. It’s a worker’s tale, less specific to the blue-collar life as it is about anyone struggling to make something of themselves. Having been compared sonically to Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, Vikesh brings his narrative to life with a powerful, emotionally-charged croon.


Tracklist:
1 - Bottom Of The Ladder
2 - The Ballad Of Willy Robbins
3 - I Dreamt Blues
4 - Blue-Eyed Baby
5 - Carry Me, Home
6 - I Never Knew What I Saw In You
7 - Searching For The Sun
8 - Ode To My Hometown
9- Forever Gone

Free Downloads: 'Bottom Of The Ladder' and I Dreamt Blues'
The Ballad Of Willy Robbins available on Bandcamp via Mama Bird Recording Co.



Vikesh Kapoor - Bottom Of The Ladder (Official Video) from Randy Sterling Hunter on Vimeo.

GET SOME HOT MUSTARD! Live at Mole Hill Theatre

Photo by Bill Gnade / Sentinel Staff |

April Jubett : guitar & vocals Bill Jubett : banjo & vocals

Bruce Stockwell : banjo & vocals Kelly Stockwell : bass

Hot Mustard may well be a bluegrass first - a quartet featuring two banjos and two married couples! When singer/banjo picker Bill Jubett teamed up with singer/guitarist April Hobart (now April Jubett), a truly classic-sounding duet was born. Add banjo picker/singer Bruce Stockwell, a 40-year bluegrass veteran and MerleFest banjo contest winner, along with his wife, bassist Kelly Stockwell, and you’ve got some hot and spicy bluegrass chemistry!

Banjoist Bruce Stockwell is known around New England for decades of great work with the Stockwell Brothers, and for his excellent banjo instruction. Bruce's wife Kelly, an old-time banjoist in her own right, took up the bass fiddle facilitating the formation of Hot Mustard. She eagerly tackles unusual bass breaks. Bruce and Kelly live in southern Vermont.

Guitarist/singer April Jubett comes from Maine, inspired by her dad's decades of playing bluegrass there. April is a vocal stylist with a clear, clean, vibrato-free country tone hailing back to Sara Carter. She also plays strong guitar (with a thumb pick) and emcees the show. April and Bill Jubett were literal newlyweds at the time of this recording. Bill is Bruce's banjo student and protege. They must have woodshedded endlessly to develop their stunning twin banjo arrangements of jazz, blues, country and bluegrass standards, as you'll hear in "Medley" and Jimmy Martin's "Theme Time" and "Hold Whatcha Got". Bill is also a stout lead singer. Bill and April live in southern New Hampshire.

Purchase Debut CD

Every bluegrass band has learned, no matter how hot the pickin', you've got to have good singing. Hot Mustard features very traditional numbers such as Jean Ritchie's "Blue Diamond Mines" and Roy Acuff's "Streamlined Cannon Ball". April leads the way with power and sensitivity. She also sings terrific harmony with Bill and Bruce, notably on the Stanley Brothers inspired "Angel Band". The only adjective for their slow trios is "luscious"! April also wrote and sings a haunting introduction to Ralph Stanley's "Clinch Mountain Backstep". She adds verses to "The Banks of the Ohio" telling the unfortunate girl's side of the story, as she duets with Bill.

Hold Whatcha Got.mp3
Streamline Cannonball.mp3
Same Old Day.mp3
Sweet Dixie.mp3

Scott H. Biram Announces New Album ‘Nothin’ But Blood’ and Pre-Order

Photo by Sandy Carson 

Scott H. Biram will release a new album Nothin’ But Blood on February 4, 2014. The full-length is Biram’s ninth overall album and fifth with Bloodshot Records. You can preorder the album here:

Something heavy is happening to Scott H. Biram. There he is, eyes rolling back in his head, arms outstretched, consumed with bliss, exhaustion, or guilt, being consigned to the old crimson river. In this moment, being baptized in blood might be Biram’s dark epiphany, the 12 songs of Nothin’ But Blood a conduit for an emotional fight or flight, relaying a deep personal grapple between the pure and the impure, good and bad, the beautiful dream and an ugly reality.

What in the past has been expressed through reeling irreverence and spirit-lifting profanity (which he’s still got in spades; don’t worry) is here a more penetrating, and chilling, version of The Dirty Old One Man Band– self-examining and penitent, yet still as crazy as a jack-eyed preacher. On his ninth album (and fifth for Bloodshot Records) ‘blood’ is many, often inherently contradictory, themes: life, death, suffering, evil, commitment, legacy, atonement. Even in its title, “Nothin’ But” could mean “all encompassing” or “it’s no big deal.” Literally, all or nothing.

There are songs where Biram – the hard-living, whiskey-loving lifelong Texan – howls of mortality (“When I Die”), sin (“Backdoor Man”), and guilt and frustration (“Slow & Easy”), all the while struggling with which side he’ll end up on (and it probably ain’t the one with golden halos and white wings). He deftly sews together a myriad of flawed everymancharacters: nostalgic, stoned veteran (“Nam Weed”); boozing, jealous lover (“Alcohol Blues”); and sadistic muses (“Church Point Girls”).

The rousing Black Flag-meets-Son House boot-stomper “Only Whiskey” punches a hole in the notion of temperance and rewrites the meaning of monogamy – the story of a man so disillusioned with romance he reserves vice as his permanent bed partner. In “Gotta Get to Heaven”, fervent “hallelujahs” allude to a youthful and impious Biram, who quit churchat 10 years-old but also found his life’s calling when an African-American Baptist choir performed for his grade school.

Throughout Nothin’ But Blood, recorded at Biram’s home studio and Cacophony Studios in Austin, TX, SHB’s distinct songwriting style encompasses his penchant for sludge metal and palm muting (“Around the Bend”), the raw sucker punch of punk rock (“Only Whiskey”), profound truths of sentimental acoustic blues and country (“Never Comin’ Home”), the cleansing powers of gospel hymns and spiritual ballads (“When I Die”), and folk tales from the early 20th century (there has never been a more beautifully creepy and morosely slinky take on “Jack of Diamonds”).

When you boil it all down in a simmering cauldron, Nothin’ But Blood is storytelling about wrongdoing and redemption. Scott H. Biram’s music is from the soul, for the soul, of the soul – and with this album, the spiritual buckshot lodges deeper than ever.
Listen to the new single 'When I Die' here

Tracklist: 
1. Slow & Easy
2. Gotta Get To Heaven
3. Alcohol Blues
4. Never Comin’ Home
5. Only Whiskey
6. Jack of Diamonds
7. Nam Weed
8. Backdoor Man
9. Chuch Point Girls
10. I’m Troubled
11. Around The Bend
Gospel bonus tracks:
12. Amazing Grace
13. When I Die
14. John The Revelator (featuring Jesse Vain)

A limited-edition 7 inch RED vinyl features the debut track 'When I Die' from the forthcoming studio album 'Nothing But Blood', from Scott H. Biram! B-side features a raved-up killer cover of the gospel blues classic 'John the Revelator.' Both tracks are available here for the first time!

Track Listing 
Side A 
1. When I Die 
Side B 
2. John The Revelator (ft. Jesse Vain)

Kayleigh Leith - This Woman

Following the successful response to Kayleigh Leith’s debut album Miles Away, Kayleigh spent the last 2 years touring, writing and preparing for the anticipated follow up album which is called ‘This Woman’.
Kayleigh Leith was reared in Pittsburgh but now lives in Holland during a tour stop in Nashville in 2012, Kayleigh took some time to write with some of Nashville’s top songwriters. One of those writers was Rob Crosby. Rob penned tracks for people like Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride and many others. Rob took Kayleigh under his wing and the two set off on creating Kayleigh’s second album. Kayleigh really wanted that Nashville New Country sound, so she returned to Music City later that year to start recording her second album called ‘This Woman’ with Rob Crosby as acting producer. It also features some of Nashville’s top talent such as current country superstars Eric Paslay and Rose Falcon.

Ok I was hesitant about this, as the genre is listed as ‘New Country Pop’ of which I’m not a fan but if others follow Kayleigh’s lead perhaps there is hope. Yowza! This Woman's got it, her powerful vocals and range with an abundance of slide guitar and excellent accompaniment from the musicians she’s surrounded herself with have me listening to this album regularly.

Available on CDBaby and Amazon

Tracklist:

1. Born Ready

2. Feelin' Bout You  

3. Feels Like Letting Go  

4. I Go There 

5. This Woman  

6. My Heart Goes Back  

7. Too Much of a Good Thing  

8. Be Here All Night  

9. Acre of Diamonds  

10. Bet You!  

#FREEBEE Alert! 1st single from Swaying Wires Upcoming 'Some Blue Sky' album

The idea of Swaying Wires was born in a tiny dorm room back in 2008.  After a couple of years it could no longer fit inside those four walls. What started as a one woman-project of Tina Kärkinen, developed into a full-grown band in 2010 with members Sami Lehtonen, Nicklas Hägen and Jussi Virkkumaa. In the summer of 2011 the band recorded a clutch of demo songs and began working on their first album the following year. Swaying Wires hails from the south-west city of Turku, Finland.

The combination of Tina's delicate but powerful vocals and the robust instrumentation from the band are hauntingly beautiful.
Download the 1st single 'Blinding Nights' from Swaying Wires Some Blue Sky album [out March 17th 2014] for free!

Delco Pacers - Debut LP Stereo Streets

Formed in 2012 and based in Philadelphia, Delco Pacers have been described by WXPN’s The Key as having “a penchant for reflective, melodic songs that blend jangling acoustic instrumentation with rumbling amplifiers and thumping drums, while carrying hints of Ryan Adams, Recovering the Satellites-era Counting Crows and late 80s R.E.M.”

Led by lead-singer/guitarist Jonathan Pitts, Delco Pacers feature Pavlo Demkiv on drums and Evan Dick on bass. After releasing their debut EP, Riddlewood, in 2012, Delco Pacers have spent the last two years playing shows along the east coast while preparing new material for their debut full-length LP. Stereo Streets, which was recorded & engineered by Mike Lust (Tight Phantomz, Lustre King) at Chicago’s King Size Sound Labs in July of 2013 and released November 19, 2013

After two years of road travel, on 'Stereo Streets' Delco Pacers hit thier stride and prove why they're one of Philly's bands to pay attention to.

Tracklist:
1. Blue Trucks
2. 1050
3. Netherland
4. All Too Sure
5. Cheap Seats
6. The Skinny
7. Rooftops
8. Departure Song
9. Hurricane
10. Walls

#FREEBEE Alert! little hurricane - Stay Classy (A Collection of Cover Songs)

After a long summer touring and recording thier upcoming new release, San Diego blues duo little hurricane offer a free collection of ten covers of their favorite songs.

Tracklist:
 1. Dark End of the Street (Percy Sledge cover)
2. Bad Moon Rising (CCR cover)
3. I'm On Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover)
4. Money (Pink Floyd cover)
5. Ain't No Sunshine (Bill Withers cover)
6. Shadow Boxer (Fiona Apple cover)
7. Grounds for Divorce (Elbow cover)
 8. Blue Jean Blues (ZZ Top cover)
9. Natural Blues (Moby / Vera Hall cover)
10. Don't Wanna Miss A Thing (Aerosmith cover)

Free Download in exchange for an addy

Upcoming Show Dates:

Feb 03 Bowery Ballroom (w/ John Butler Trio) New York, NY
Feb 04 Music Hall of Williamsburg (w/ John Butler Trio) Brooklyn, NY
Feb 06 Danforth Music Hall (w/ John Butler Trio) Toronto, Canada
Feb 07 The Vic Theatre (w/ John Butler Trio) Chicago, IL
Feb 08 The Vic Theatre (w/ John Butler Trio) Chicago, IL
Feb 09 First Avenue (w/ John Butler Trio) Minneapolis, MN
Feb 12 The Wilma Theatre (w/ John Butler Trio) Missoula, MT
Feb 14 Moore Theatre (w/ The John Butler Trio) Seattle, WA
Feb 15 Commodore Ballroom (w/ John Butler Trio) Vancouver, Canada
Feb 16 Commodore Ballroom (w/ John Butler Trio) Vancouver, Canada
Feb 18 Crystal Ballroom (w/ John Butler Trio) Portland, OR

Listen Sweden Alt-Rockers, Above Orange debut single 'Better Days'

Arvid Öberg

Axel Lindbäck

David Scholander

Oscar Kangro

Alexandra Manhammar

Listen to this refreshing, beautifully luscious R&R single from Swedish alt rockers Above Orange off thier upcoming debut release 'Better Days'
In spring 2012, during a four month stay in Montreal, Arvid Öberg started sending lofi demos recorded on a twelve string guitar back home to the band members Axel Lindbäck, Adam Agace, David Scholander och Oscar Kangro in Lund, Sweden. Heavy Influenced by the Canadian/Montreal music scene. Back home in Malmö, Sweden, things started falling into place when the songs were recorded by producer Wallentin Rickardsson. The result is "Unreal City EP". Six tracks where you can hear influences from Neil Young and Arcade Fire as well as Grant Le Buffalo and Sparklehorse.
Release date is set for December 6th.

New Release - Kurt von Stetten - Broken, but not undone

Kurt von Stetten began experimenting with music and recordings in Boston during the summer of 1996. During this time, he began to experience terrible bouts of "self proclaimed"  bromhidrosis (look it up), forcing him to record alone in his bedroom. For a period of 10 years, von Stetten holed up in his bedroom studio and learned how to play guitar and drums by recording himself over and over again.
'Broken, but not undone' is the 8th release from DIY practitioner Kurt von Stetten. Harnessing his love of early 90s indie rock (think Pavement, Sebadoh and early Modest Mouse) interweaved with his own insecurities, fears and passions.
The sounds, textures, and nuances on Broken, But Not Undone are 100% von Stetten. While he's always done his own instrumentation, von Stetten had the last three records professionally mixed and mastered. On Broken, there's nowhere to hide, and the results may not be technically flawless, but it's the way von Stetten wants you to hear it.

"I really tried to just play with sound on a lot of these songs," recalls von Stetten. "I know that I mix incorrectly and that I do not know what I am doing sonically but this is the way I hear them."

The result is a gloriously chaotic, beautiful trip into the psyche of one of today's great unsung artists.
Free download 'Those That Know' via Largehearted Boy

Tracklist: 
1. Those That Know.mp3
2. Tooahyaysay
3. Cashier Girls
4. Bucky Fuller
5. Slime
6. Age of No
7. Nature Is a Ride or Die Bitch
8. Competition (Fuck Bob Pollard)
9. Song for a Phobic, Pt. 3
10. Sally Dear
11. Nickname: Cowboy Shit
12. Her First Crew

Released November 19, 2013 Limited copies also available on Pink Vinyl

The Green Boys - Oh Delia

Ryan Green (Vocals, Bass, Banjo) - Sean Green (Vocals, Guitar)  - Michael Emmons (Vocals, Dobro, Steel, Banjo)  - Zack Miller (Mandolin) - Jonathan Burkett (Drums) 

The Green Boys are a four-piece band based out of Richmond, Virginia, the gents play a style of country, meets traveling medicine show, meets rural hoe down. I am not really sure how these guys do it, but they somehow manage to bridge the gap between old time revival music and put a modern twist with certain harmony parts and exquisite recording. The GBs bio claims that they are “Equally mislabeled as bluegrass, folk, or honky-tonk…”  The Boys are fronted by the brother team of Sean and Ryan Green, both adding vocal and songwriting capabilities to the band’s sound. This provides an eclectic range to the band’s sound, yet somehow blends effortlessly.

They have shared the stage with artists such as Southern Culture on the Skids, NO BS Brass, Jackass Flats, The Hot Seats, Frontier Ruckus, Spirit Family Reunion and Folk Soul Revival. They have played many prominent regional venues and frequent the Virginia festival circuit including a 2012 first-place finish in the Watermelon Park Bluegrass Festival band contest.

Their first full-length album "Oh Delia" released in May of 2013 is a magnificent blend of country twang, honky tonk and old timey porch music with outstanding strings and harmonies and Ryan Green’s vocals float melodically and effortlessly throughout.

Tracklist:
1. It's Easy (To Die Alone)
2. My Love
3. Leaving On A Whim
4. Summer Song
5. St. Mary's Wilderness
6. Hard Luck Blues
7. The Morning
8. Black Mountain Promenade
9. Fine By Me
10. She's Out Of Your League
11. Yes and No
12. I Wanna Be Like You (The Jungle Book Song)