Like Him or Not, Bob Wayne Has Arrived
I bet when you saw Bob Wayne's name in the title of this article, you had some sort of immediate emotional reaction, didn't you? You either thought, “That foul mouthed punk, I can't even stand to see...
View ArticleSarah Gayle Meech &“One Good Thing” Revitalize Honky Tonk
Lower Broadway in Nashville has a new songstress haunting the streets, and she's a good one. If you want to know how to put out one badass independent/underground country album in Nashville, you could...
View ArticleMumford & Sons Take Roots Music Mainstream w/ “Babel”
By all accounts, I should hate these dudes, and this album by proxy. t was announced that Babel was the best-selling debut so far in 2012, selling 600,000 copies and outpacing folks like Justin Bieber....
View Article.357 String Band Reissues Landmark Album “Fire & Hail”
the loss of .357 String Band may go down as underground country's greatest tragedy. I can think of no other project that was so ripe for becoming a success story of authentic American underground...
View ArticleApolitical Country Songs To Help Survive The Political Season
About this time every four years the political rhetoric reaches critical mass as TV, radio, and the internet are permeated with political ads, while your personal social network feed is filled with...
View ArticleWhy Underground Country Music Is Dying (A Treatise)
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...
View ArticleThe Greatest Underground Country Albums of All Time
By request, here is my list of the greatest underground country albums of all time. The underground country movement started roughly in the mid 90's on lower Broadway in Nashville that at the time was...
View ArticleSaving Country Music’s Best Live Performances of 2012
Where 2011 felt like a high water mark year for live performances and an average year for recorded projects, 2012 feels vice versa. When I look back on 2011, it seemed like there were moments I...
View ArticleDeath of Mutual Friend Reunites Musical Talent
The Farmageddon Records family suffered a grave loss last week when Richard Laferte II unexpectedly passed away Saturday, January 5th while visiting family and friends in Maine. Following a formal time...
View ArticleThe Music That Paved The Way For Mumford & Sons
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...
View ArticleThe Dinosaur Truckers Set Bluegrass On Fire
Holy mother. While the Mumfordization of roots music has left so many string bands looking for the right watered-down derivative to forge mass appeal, The Dinosaur Truckers offer up the pure, uncut,...
View ArticleHellbound Glory Still Hungry After Kid Rock Tour
Reno, Nevada's Hellbound Glory has just come off two legs of arena shows opening for Kid Rock on his nationwide Rebel Soul tour, and are recovering now to get ready for their own tour in early summer....
View ArticleTwo Dollar Pistols’ Legacy Revived in John Howie Jr.’s ‘Leaving Yesterday’
"Leavin' Yesterday" is a brilliantly-written, steadfastly country old school tearjerker that doesn't relent on the heartaches once in the album's 13 stellar tracks. Just a glance at song titles like...
View ArticleJayke Orvis & The Broken Band’s “Bless This Mess”
If you're looking for an act that is still virtually unknown, one that is buried deep in the underground and that embodies the raw energy of the roots movement and not just a commercially-viable...
View ArticleAlbum Review – The Dinosaur Truckers
Can four dudes from Germany make American roots music and still be authentic? Do they have the ear, the personal history, the DNA, the dirt under their fingernails to do what American-based string...
View Article16 Essential One Man Bands of the Roots World
Good music is entertaining. Great music changes lives. And on the front lines of life altering music experiences are the one man bands. Courageous, pioneering, persevering through obscurity and...
View Article12 Songs That Helped Create The Country Music Underground
The underground country movement initially formed around the mid 90's not because somebody launched a website or a record label. It wasn't because of a festival or because someone came up with a...
View ArticleList of Dark Country & Roots Artists for Halloween
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...
View ArticleSaving Country Music’s Best Live Performances of 2013
The greatest album, and the greatest recorded song will never be able to trump the truly live musical experience where music is shared in real time with both the artist and listeners. It is in this...
View ArticleAlbum Stream – Joseph Huber’s “The Hanging Road”
Joseph Huber is one of those country roots gems with potent tunes that impact the open heart with such resonance and penetration, it remains with the listener much after the music stops. The Hanging...
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