Nashville based roots rock singer/songwriter Pat Anderson (born in Oklahoma and raised in Virginia) has an album out,“Magnolia Road”, which features ex-Jayhawk Jen Gunderman (piano, organ, accordion, harmonium), and the gutsy and greasy rock guitar of Will Kimbrough. It’s a good album made better by Kimbrough, who I will always love from his days as the guitar slinger in Todd Snider’s band The Nervous Wrecks back in the 1990’s.
Do you like Will Hoge? You ‘ll like this album…
It is Petty-style country rock, with ballads, rockers, great production, and Kimbrough.
Not much video on YouTube from Anderson, but go to his website to hear the album, and watch this piece from the BBC, of all people.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-8AIFjBFYs]
Rob Nichols
Alt-Country/Americana with Sarah & the Tall Boys, Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors
Some tasty and rocking alt-country/Americana bands are hitting Indianapolis in the next month.
Sarah and the Tall Boys are coming to the Slippery Noodle on Feb. 10th. Fronted by songwriter Sarah Potenza Crossman on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, with help from bassist/husband Ian Crossman, lead guitarist Dan Allen, and drummer Bryan Sansom, the band hits Indianapolis supporting it’s second full length album “A Lifetime Worth of Sin”. Called “part Alt-Country, part Blues, they play great American music” according to the Chicago Daily Herald.
Nashville’s Drew Holcomb & the Neighbors (the Nashville Scene says the music “splits the difference between Petty-esque power-pop and Springsteen choruses”) will be in Indianapolis at the Vogue Theater on Thursday, February 17th on tour supporting Marc Broussard.
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Indy’s own Cara Jean Wahlers and Grover David Parido are playing at Birdy’s on February 2nd and booked at Locals Only with Krista Detor on March 4th.
Shawn Mullins has a show at the Wheeler Arts Community Center in Fountain Square March 6th as part of the Indy Acoustic Cafe Series.
Tech Stuff: MySpace Wants to Sell? Whoops. They might have missed their moment…
News Corp. has announced plans to sell MySpace. Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey said that “now is the right time” for a “under a new owner.”
Whoops. “We screwed up by not paying attention and now we want our money back”. Is that what I hear them saying? If so, the money may not be there.
MySpace tried to make changes this year (a crappy ground-up redesign), but the crowd had already left the store MySpace owns. News Corp. should have saved their money with that facelift. People now meet up in a different place, a friendlier address, called Facebook/Twitter/Linked-in.
Almost half of MySpace’s staff was served pink slips at the beginning of 2011, reducing overhead. This piece of the company is bleeding money. So they are selling.
Who’s gonna buy? Is there a value to MySpace? I can’t see anything worth more than a few pennies on the MySpace once-proud-but-ugly dollar. Is there a value for musicians to host songs to share with their fans? At one time (two years ago), there might have been. But the fans are gone from the site, and there are others places that more elegantly serve the MySpace music purpose.
Let it die peacefully. It served us all well back before we knew any better. And even then, we could tell it was wonky and looked like crap.
But is was the only social thing we had. Like a first car; a piece of shit, but we loved it at the time. Got us where we were going.
Now, we can’t believe we drove that thing, with the old radio, ugly paint job, crappy heater and the noise coming from the engine. We look back and laugh at the car. And at MySpace.
Good luck selling what’s left. To me, it’s not much. But I am sure there is some technical innovation the fellas at Facebook would pay a couple pity millions for, right?
Todd Snider: a new album and interview with No Depression
“Back in the late 80’s, I was playing an afternoon show at a festival. Backstage was Billy White Shoes Johnson, myself, Alejandro Escovedo, Jerry Jeff Walker, Weird Al Yankovic and some odd -looking friend of his began playing a simple little poker game that, in my opinion, spun way out of control. When we started talking about the single Elton John had put out with Kiki Dee entitled “Don’t Go Breaking my Heart”, things did indeed get ugly between Alejandro and Weird Al Yankovic’s friend. ” – story as told by Todd Snider
Todd Snider should be (maybe already is) considered one of the best storytellers of his generation. The 40-something folk rocker could never sing again, and just sit on a stool onstage, and talk, and he would be great. I’ve never seen him completely screw up a story; it iseither funny, heartfelt, happy-with-reservations, soul-baring or inflammatory, and always brilliantly told. Most of the time, it is three of those things at the same time.
His new live album, The Storyteller, wraps itself around both the stories without music – and the stories with.
Snider exchanged email’s with No Depression’s Hal Bogerd talked, and Snider (as shown in the opening passage to this blog post, taken from that interview) keeps his internal screw just a little loose, on purpose or not, and is endearingly intelligent and happily hippie.
READ INTERVIEW
Justin Townes Earle covers Bruce's "Racing in the Streets"
Justin Townes Earle must have got the Darkness” box set… because Earle broke out his version of Springsteen’s “Racing in the Street” while in Dublin last week. Smooth and powerful, I love this slow-burn version. Pretty damn good sound too.
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New music from Steve Earle, Todd Snider
T Bone Burnett produced the Steve Earle song “This City”, which plays during the closing credit for HBO’s Treme, a drama set in the Treme district of New Orleans which in which Earle plays the character of Harley, a local folk musician who is forming a Cajun band to back him on a tour. According to his website, the song will appear on Earle’s upcoming album which will be also be produced Burnett, and has been described by Earle as his “most country album to date.” I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive comes outon April 26th via New West Records. The album is the anticipated follow up to the Grammy Award winning 2009 release Townes.
Steve Earle, Shooter Jennings, Mojo Nixon, Elizabeth Cook talk Springsteen
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Todd Snider is working with Don Was and Great American Taxi, recording Jerry Jeff Walker songs to be released next year on the occasion of Jerry Jeff’s 70th birthday. Snider says they are about half way done with the project.
“We did ‘Will There Be Any?’ and were going to do ‘Pissin in the Wind’, he writes on his Facebook page. “I think were gonna do about 15 songs…all but three written by jjw. The others are songs he didn’t write but made famous.”
Follow Todd’s postings on his notes page at Facebook. Snider’s also has a new live album coming out February 1.