Ronnie Fauss is coming to Denver in August! He is slated to play Quixote’s True Blue on August 4.
His new CD, “Mulligan”, comes out around then so hopefully, we’ll be hearing some stuff from that. In the meantime, you can hear it here.
Apr 102010
Very exciting news! Brent Best, frontman and songwriter for The Drams and Slobberbone, is working on a solo CD. And for those of us who like to give our money directly to the artist, here’s our chance. Mr. Best is going to be his own record company – just needs a little (very little) cash up front to get the operation up and running. You can read about it here.
But let me summarize. The suggestion is that people who are interested send him $10 now and by the end of the summer, he will send a limited edition, personalized record with his solo material on it.
Here’s what he says about the music: “A few of these songs you might have heard me perform live the last few years, some I’ve never played outside my house and some have never left their hard drive. They’ve marinated long enough, methinks. With that in mind, I’ve decided they should be recorded all proper-like, in a real studio.”
That’s just like two grande cappuccinos from you-know-where but the buzz you get will be so much better and last so much longer. Pretty sure he’ll deliver too. He’s never let me down. And I can’t wait.
Sep 162009
We here at SlackerCountry.com just updated our blog technology and noticed something interesting. See that tag cloud over on the right? The tag size is in 
proportion to how often we write about each artist and the Drive-By Trucker tag is suspiciously small.
This caused us to do some serious soul-searching because, really, we slackers (especially me and Gracey) are borderline obsessed with DBT and play them pretty much ALL THE TIME. We’ve all been to see them at least once (twice, three times) in the past year – basically anytime they are in the neighborhood. Much of Gracey’s conversation revolves around things she has read on the DBT fan board. . . . And then there is the whole problem of keeping Gracey from stalking the tour bus.
SlackerCountry.com really loves The Felice Brothers and Gracey, in particular, has a big ole crush on Simone Felice so, when his publicity folks sent us a single from his new side project, The Duke & the King, we said, "Hell, yes, we’d like to post an mp3."
Tell us what you think of The Morning I Get To Hell!
The Duke and the King’s album, "Nothing Gold Can Stay," comes out on August 4 and the band plans to tour starting in August.
(photo credit: Dave Herron)
Apr 192009
I can still remember when I first heard the Jayhawks in the early nineties. A friend had given me a tape of Hollywood Town Hall
and my first response was “Neil Young could probably sue those guys.” I think I might have said that once or twice when the subject of the Jayhawks came up but after a few listens… and then a few more… those songs started working their way into my head on a cellular level. I quit making snarky comments about them and started playing them all the time.
Over the course of three records they managed to forge a sound that was, at the same time, highly derivative and highly original and became one of my very favorite bands.
Yeah, they were more white-guy-folk-rock than the "alt country" label they were tagged with. Their early seventies “Southern Man” style riffs and long guitar jams merged with vaguely abstract lyrics and those ethereal harmonies between songwriters Mark Olson and Gary Louris, created a bunch of stubbornly enduring songs that could stick in your head like superglue.
After Olson left the band at their creative peak in ‘95, despite teaming up with his then-wife Victoria Williams, he kind of faded into obscurity while Louris kept the Jayhawks going, changing their sound pretty dramatically on the next two albums.
I caught an Olson solo show last year. It was a great night of quiet acoustic music with a few Jayhawks songs but there was definitely something missing. Obviously what was missing was Gary Louris.
So when Olson and Louris had put out a new acoustic record and booked a show in town, at the Sons of Herman Hall no less, I’m sure I wasn’t the only person around here who was overly excited at the opportunity.
Friday night they showed this town just what was lost when they went their separate ways long over a decade ago. You can take your Simon and Garfunkel and your Tweedy and Farrar and your Johnny and June and even your She and Him… If ever two people were born to sing together it was Olson and Louris.