Alejandro Escovedo
Feel a brand new heartache coming on? It's the master of internal disaster, Alejandro Escovedo, back with a loaded deck of songs for your listening pleasure. But be careful! Before you know it, this combination of new tunes and cover favorites will twist your guts into neat little knots--just like
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In these times of manufactured drama and shallow resolution, and of emotions that are
cheapened and packaged for ready consumption, it is easy enough to talk casually of
loss, longing, regret, and redemption. It is the truly rare artist, though, who can crawl
inside of these themes, explore them
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These live tracks were recorded from Seattle to Paris (France--not Texas). Unlike most live records, the sound is superlative, and focuses on his Orchestra manifestation (which means you've got achingly beautiful cellos bumping elbows with big, meaty guitars). This album is perfectly suited to
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Andre Williams
O.K. sugarbabies; are you sitting down? Well, get your asses up and prepare to shake the proverbial tailfeather--because Andre "Mr Rhythm" Williams is BACK and he's baaaaaad!! Bloodshot Records is pleased, nay, honored to bring you his latest and greatest: Red Dirt, 14 country-SOUL smokers
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He’s a chameleon, a survivor and a hustler. He’s the fox AND the hound.
For That’s All I Need, Andre went back home to Detroit to cut a record of psychedelic soul and growling 4am slow jams with a solid rock and roll backbone. It’s a stone cold look back to a time when that city was messing ....
As the story goes: during the summer of 2010, Andre was invited to appear at Don Was’ Concert of Colors in Detroit alongside Mavis Staples and a diverse roster of world, classical, and pop/rock acts. Ever the one to seize an opportunity, Andre both brought down the house at the Concert and ....
Andre Williams & the New Orleans Hellhounds
Traveling from Chicago to New Orleans on the mainline, R&B cult hero Andre "Mr. Rhythm" Williams has teamed with the Crescent City's hedonistic barroom punks The New Orleans Hellhounds. The ‘hounds share several band members with the notorious Morning 40 Federation, a band of alcoholic
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Ben Weaver
After years of chopping wood to keep his house warm, Ben Weaver has left the ax in the oak. It’s a statement of confidence as well as an artistic metaphor for Weaver, whose sixth studio album, The Ax in the Oak, is his most realized and mature work to date—the culmination of personal and musical
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"I'd rather have scars from the life I lived, than have none from the one I missed." --from the song "Drag the Hills"
For Minnesota-native Ben Weaver, the follow-up to his lauded 2008 album, The Ax in the Oak, came from a somewhat unexpected series of life choices and experiences.
In ....
Bobby Bare Jr.
A post-punk platter of psychedelic melancholy.
Young Criminals' Starvation League flirts with Beatles-like harmonies, a fascination with early 70's classic country, and some gen-u-ine Nashville soul, but also delivers a quick sucker punch to the past through literate, biting songwriting. ....
Here's a budget-priced platter of delicious music. OK, I'm Sorry... recasts some of the best songs off the Young Criminals Starvation League album in a live setting (there's even one stripped down version that shows you the soul at the center of his songwriting), and introduces you to some new
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Bobby and his Young Criminals’ Starvation League’s latest is a frothy, brilliant, genre-bending mongrel. There are dreamy pop songs sung by folks not ready to turn their backs on the visceral joys of gutter punk. There’s a shameless embrace of groovy SoCal country rock. There are sharp, soulful
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11 songs in 11 hours. That's what happened on March 26th, 2006. After wood-shedding for weeks with some of the most innovative musicians from a vibrant southeastern talent pool, Bobby and friends knocked out The Longest Meow in one arduous session that he calls "the most fun I have ever had with
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Charlie Pickett
If you accept the premise put forth by Keith Richards that the title of "greatest rock and roll band in the world" is determined on a nightly basis, then we want to tell you about some guys that owned it on quite a few nights in the 80's, a band that, for a variety of reasons, fell through the
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Cordero
En este momento, Cordero’s fourth release, and debut for
Bloodshot Records, is an intoxicating, magnetic concoction
of shake-your-hips rock and punkish abandon, tangled up in
sensual Latin rhythms and verses.
South of the border ballads are spiced with rave-ups that effortlessly ....
YOU CAN’T PICK YOUR SORROWS. Cordero knows this first-hand. After an unfortunate string of family and friend crises, bandleader Ani Cordero found herself physically and emotionally drained, and grasping for fragments of hope and solace. Finding writing on her mother’s nylon string guitar in her
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Cory Branan
Cory Branan is a natural-born storyteller. As with any of his musical and literary pedestal sitters, from John Prine and Leonard Cohen to Raymond Carver and Márquez, his seemingly conversational, painstakingly crafted anecdotes benefit from a hard-eyed stare at hydra-headed experience.
MUTT ....
Danbert Nobacon
Avast!, ye merchants of despair, ye captains of industry, ye free-market colonialists! There’s a fearsome mistral kicking up the sails, a gale that carries spectral voices from the edge of civilization, a tempest that will sow your ruin! Danbert Nobacon hears the insurrectionist call that the winds
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Deadstring Brothers
When your head is hitting the ground; when you're picking gravel from your knees; when you've spent the night gathering up your clothes, Exile on Main Street and Brown Album LPs she threw out the window onto the lawn the night before--then you're ready for Deadstring Brothers.
Starving ....
When the Detroit-based Deadstring Brothers released their critically acclaimed U.S. debut, Starving Winter Report, in the winter of 2006, they took to the road, touring with sidemen on steel guitar while seeking a permanent collaborator with a shared vision. They found what they were looking for in
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From the classic rock echoes that hang heavy like the reefer smoke in the rafters of Detroit's Cobo Hall, to the soul reflected in the alleys and small faces of London's Heavy Load scene to the exile off Main Street, few bands channel the sonic groove generated at the headwaters of our rock and
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It may be a surprise to hear the wistful Americana sound of Detroit's Deadstring Brothers coming from a city better known for loud rock, but disillusionment can take many channels. Desolation, frustration and regret have always been present where great country music has played, and from its ....
In 2010, the Deadstring Brothers founder and frontman Kurt Marschke reversed the great Southern Migration, de-camped from his hometown and moved to Nashville. Andwhile you can never, ever take all the Detroit out of a Detroiter, the latest Deadstring album throws the doors open wide to an even ....
Devil In A Woodpile
It's time to step in the Wayback Machine and travel back to the mists of the early days of the 20th century. You know, back when music wasn't categorized or electrified. Those were the halcyon days of shellac and wax cylinders and Victrolas and washboards. Mmmmmm..... washboards.
Emerging ....
Devil in a Woodpile need none of the mistress electricity to bring a room to its
knees. They play acoustic, organic, down and dirty style--like the dirt under
your nails or the cider that goes hard in the cellar.
The Devil's gonna take you for a rough ride in the back of the old pickup ....
Dex Romweber Duo
Twenty years on from the FLAT DUO JETS, who created the template for stripped down rock and roll that’s been copped by the White Stripes and a thousand far less clever bands, Dex Romweber has teamed up with his sister Sara (Let’s Active, Snatches of Pink) for the first time on the debut album by
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The Dex Romweber Duo burrows into the guts of American roots music with a uniquely alchemical mania; they are clearly bored with, or oblivious to, genre constraints. With a mix of originals and obscure nuggets from rock and roll’s dusky back closets, the DRD romps through the sweaty cinder block
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Dollar Store
Plying the choppy sonic waves between the best aspects of the roots rock ghetto, mid-80's Minneapolis punk and the vaunted Chicago noise guitar scene is Dollar Store's gritty, self-titled debut CD. Deano and the boys take old school chord progressions and slather them with textures, volume, and
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Loaded with trans-fats, soaked in cheap hops, and good for you in that way you know ain't no damn good for you. Given that Dollar Store's self-titled debut album (2004) was widely described as a slab of greasy roots rock, Money Music should be labeled "extra-greasy," which is to say, extra
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Eddie Spaghetti
Everybody’s got that pal they turn to whenever they need a party, and for a long time Eddie Spaghetti, Supersucker Soul Brother Number One, has been that guy. Revelling in the center stage spotlight and the wallop of thousands of PAs for thousands of shows across the land, Eddie’s learned how to
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Eddie Spaghetti, front man for those Seattlebased pleasure barons of arena garage punk The Supersuckers, kicks out his first solo album of all originals. You might find that songwriting distinction surprising—given his lifetime traveling to two-bit hotels and dumpy backstages in order to ....
Exene Cervenka
The foundation of the best punk rock, the music that lasts and remains relevant, isn’t self-destructive anger or smash the state bravado, but a sense of alienation and dislocation. The longing of the outsider. No band epitomized the burst of creativity and energy in this essential awareness better
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Life has its own built-in forms of emotional and creative inertia. And while some people experience a gradual falling off of whatever it is that makes them unique and vibrant, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Exene Cervenka. The 54 year-old singer/songwriter’s life work has been all about
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Firewater
In 2005, Firewater’s Tod A embarked on what would become a three year sabbatical through the Middle East, the Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia. He had recently split with his wife; George W. Bush had just been re-elected; New York, his home for the last 20 years, had become a cold and
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Firewater’s seminal debut predated the current multicultural music explosion by a good decade. Later bands like Gogol Bordello and Beirut owe a heavy debt to Tod A and company’s early mash-ups of punk and klezmer, Russian folk melodies and middle-eastern instrumentation. Features Duane Denison
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Not so much a theater of the absurd as a carnival of the ridiculous. This tragicomic mix of circus and cabaret, coupled with the band's typically sardonic, world-weary rock, make this their most ambitious and atmospheric album.
A crazy, woozy trip throught the upper reaches of the big ....
An homage to a collection of songs that, in one way or another, dented Firewater main man Tod A's brain.
You'll be surprised at what the band does to these selections, some well known others not soo much (like "Paint It Black" being turned into creepy crawly raga or the sunny pop of Sonny ....
Psychopharmacology contains the requisite disgruntlement of a Firewater album, and all of angst-ridden underpinnings of testosterone-laced pop. It's impassioned on subjects like the country's increasing reliance on Prozac and related substances ("Psychopharmacology"), and emotionally spiralling on
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After three years of touring and world-wandering in the wake of 2007’s The Golden Hour, Firewater ringleader Tod A finally touched down in Istanbul, Turkey. “The city is fascinating. It’s a melting pot—a lot like NYC,” Tod says of his new hometown. “And with the revolutions going on all around, I
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Gore Gore Girls
“To appreciate this music, you have to have a streak of wildness, a fierce independence of spirit, and an absolute belief in the unusual, the strange, the unpredictable, the offbeat, and even the generally unacceptable.”
-- Herschell Gordon Lewis Director of the film “The Gore Gore Girls” and ....
Graham Parker
Your Country is a warm and melodic genre-bending masterpiece. "GP" can write songs that go from Motown to Nashville without missing a beat; that make touchstones out of Neil Young’s “Harvest” and the Stones’ “Dead Flowers” as easily as Tammy Wynette’s “Stand by Your Man;” that range freely from
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Rock and Roll is about a lot of things: looks, attitude, girls, rebellion, love, hate, and girls. At the end of the day, the week, the year, the decade, though, what makes it memorable, what pile drives it into your DNA, is THE HOOK. The Hook grabs your brain and your feet and your gut and will not
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No one throws a heat wave like Chicago. That hot moist summer air blows over the treeless expanses of the Midwest, unimpeded for hundreds of miles, and fills the air with dust, fertilizer, cow sweat, soot from smelters and the exhaust from 4 million cars trying to go somewhere. It's a soul-killing
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Sometimes an artist is anointed a “legend.” Sometimes this artist’s body of work is so consistently lauded, of such ongoing interest and creativity, the audience might be tempted to take the level of craft for granted. Sometimes such an artist, after a time of flying beneath the radar, emerges with
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"Last Spring my recently acquired publishing administrators sent me an e-mail from the music supervisors of an upcoming TV sitcom. They needed a 'Main Title,' otherwise known as a theme tune. I’d never tried anything like this before but found myself intrigued by the idea of writing within a set
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Grievous Angels
The Debut CD-EP...
A righteous blend of pure honky-tonk spirit, good time bluegrass, and a BIG GUITAR sound. These desert-bred lads from Tempe AZ swagger through 7 cuts (3 as their acoustic alter-egos The Inbreds, as featured on Hell-Bent compilation) that show as much Lefty Frizzell as they ....
Galloping out of the stifling Arizona sun, this debut full-length CD from Grievous Angels delivers 11 songs packed with sand, sweat, rattlesnake scars, and, dare I say, cojones. This gutsy little package carves out a sound that befits their geographic location -- the desert turned city, smack dab
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Tempe, AZ's favorite sons come forth with their 3rd CD for Bloodshot. Once again, their near perfect melding of country and rock (but not country rock, dammit) will get moneymakers shakin' from Bakersfield to Seattle.
How can one not love the classic honky-tonk stylings in the vein of Buck ....
Ha Ha Tonka
Roaring out of the Ozarks with a bottle in one hand and a bible in the other, Ha Ha Tonka mix sanctified four-part harmonies and blistering rock, carving out songs that evoke the dichotomies that define their home. The Springfield, Missouri natives dubbed their new album Buckle in the Bible Belt in
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“Never. Never ask for what ought to be offered.”
—Daniel Woodrell, Winter’s Bone
There’s a certain wisdom that exists in the hills of the Ozarks. It’s a wisdom that spits out of the mouths of Woodrell’s characters; it’s a wisdom that is found in the lyrics by Woodrell’s fellow West Plains, ....
Hank Penny
Hank Penny should be a household name. But the reason he isn't is the same reason that this release cooks: attitude. Seems Hank wouldn't take shit from anybody. As a result, he burned a lot of bridges and missed more than a few opportunities to further his career.
He started his first band, ....
I'm Not Jim
Walter Salas-Humara and Jonathan Lethem met at a Silos gig in New Orleans. Jonathan describes, "I'm a two-decade Silos fan, and have seen Walter play in the various incarnations of his band eight or nine times over the years. When I introduced myself to him it was in the interest of sending him a
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Jane Baxter Miller
Born of her Eastern Kentucky roots and filtered through the sidewalks of Chicago, the solo debut by Jane Baxter Miller haunts and uplifts as it laments the heart broken and celebrates the heart released. Harm Among The Willows is an album of journeys and longings, both musical and emotional.
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JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound
Chicago's own. Pure and uncompromising soul music ranging from sweaty on-the-one workouts, dance-punk booty shakers, garage rock thump humps, and aching R&B ballads without a missed step in between. Album will come out just in time to warm you up in the face of the autumnal
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With Howl, JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound enters the next chapter of its soul sound evolution. In December 2012, the band holed up at Hotel2Tango Studio in Montreal to work with producer Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and dove headfirst into previously ....
Jim & Jennie & The Pinetops
From the lysergic sidewalks of Haight-Ashbury to the homebrew-stoked hollers of Kentucky and campsites of Bull Run, to the rum-soaked high seas, Jim & Jennie make you feel like they're your traveling companions through the past and into what is to be. Weaving together Southern rock and folk
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Jon Langford
Jon Langford: the Welsh leader of lefty punk pioneers The Mekons, the
man behind the curtain of the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, and lead
horseman of the Waco Brothers apocalypse. The Sadies: Toronto’s fleetfingered
psychedelic, surf-country spaghetti-westerners. Jon Langford
AND the Sadies,
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Hillbilly Ziggy Stardust Shock!
ALL THE FAME OF LOFTY DEEDS traces the ascent of a wide-eyed young
Country singer from rural obscurity to tinsel-town opulence during the
middle decades of the last century. His life parallels the optimism,
grandeur, betrayals and despair of the country and
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Full of soulful urgency and longing, of lost sailors, cruel pirates and creeping inevitabilities, the new solo album by Jon Langford travels o'er the seas and malls, from the pubs of Wales to the swamps of the settled life, steeped in the haunted, never-ending search for place. Old Devils sits on
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Jon Langford's lost album: revamped, re-mixed and re-released. Langford returned to the lost recordings and radically revised them, enlisting as his accomplices the Burlington Welsh Male Chorus, who contribute a unique warmth to the material.
"A supernova of literate, synapses-firing, ....
Justin Townes Earle
Originally self-released by Justin so he would have something to sell on the road, we re-issued it in 2008 so that more folks will be able to hear a young songwriter honing his craft. 6 songs, and it's just him, a guitar, some mandolin and harmonica.
"A strummy twang informs the gospellish ....
With Justin Townes Earle’s pedigree come mixed blessings. As the son of legendary singer/songwriter Steve Earle, high expectations are the name of the game, and he’s shown that he is up to the task on The Good Life, crafting stark portraits and narrative tales with elements of blues, classic
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Within the first song on Justin Townes Earle’s second album Midnight At the Movies, you just know you’re hearing something special, that you are party to the unknown and exhilarating paths being explored by an artist on the creative ascendancy. Midnight At The Movies displays an adeptness and
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Justin Townes Earle is an anomaly. He’s tall as the day is long, all angles and elbows and a hard stare, both welcoming and deadly serious. He’s Nashville North, all set up in lower Manhattan now, just like his hero Woody Guthrie, with twang and charm intact.
The aforementioned Woody Guthrie ....
Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now, the new album from celebrated singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle, will be released March 27 on Bloodshot Records. This is Earle’s fourth release and follows his critically acclaimed 2010 album, Harlem River Blues, which debuted #47 on
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Kelly Hogan
All the critics just love Kelly Hogan. She sings so pretty and they all coo. Yeah, whatever. But, you know something? What a bunch of guys in brown Members Only jackets with an acre of skin between their eyebrows and their foreheads say doesn’t necessarily mean that people are gonna stand in the
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Find me a better singer. I dare you. The voice that has so routinely knocked my dick in the dirt, show after show, has now been captured perfectly on this latest record. Kelly's voice is so versatile it can wrap itself around any song, in any style, be it torchy jazz, country weepers, soul-fueled
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Luke Winslow-King
Listening to Luke Winslow-King ’s third full-length album, The Coming Tide , is like taking a stroll through the artist’s adopted home of New Orleans; his Bloodshot label debut is the sound of community, emotional duality, spiritualism, and lived-on-the-streets-not-stored-in-a- ....
Lydia Loveless
Blessed with a commanding, blast-it-to-the-back-of-theroom
voice, the 21-year-old Lydia Loveless was raised on
a family farm in Coshocton, Ohio—a small weird town
with nothing to do but make music. With a dad who
owned a country music bar, Loveless often woke up with a
house full of touring
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Maggie Bjorklund
Maggie Björklund isn’t a household name. Despite this relative
surname unfamiliarity (it’s Danish), the singer/pedal steel
guitarist’s debut solo album Coming Home is drawn very much
from a familiar source, culling Maggie’s warm folksy style
together with the contributions of musicians like
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Mark Pickerel
Inspired by a solitary trip through the South without a working car radio and only his own thoughts to keep him company, Mark Pickerel’s second album for Bloodshot, Cody’s Dream, is a Steinbeckian odyssey through modern America; a tale of throughways and the characters that occupy them. The result:
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Mark Pickerel & His Praying Hands
As visceral an album an artist can make without actually spilling their guts directly onto the recording console, Snake In The Radio is rife with mossy ballads and interstate rockers crackling like unrequited CB transmissions. This debut solo CD is just as weird and beautiful and poetic and magical
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Martin Atkins' China Dub Soundsystem
Made In China is an incredible collision of traditional instrumentation and post-punk, dub and experimentation. Recording the elements separately, and waiting to mix and match them together after returning to his Mattress Factory Studios in Chicago, Martin Atkins was able to keep the performances
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Mekons
Sonic adventurers, punk rock fundamentalists, exuberant luddites, willing outcasts...
Mekons formed in Leeds, England 34 years ago in 1977 and Ancient & Modern is their 26th album. This current classic line-up has remained intact since the mid-1980's. Throughout their history, they have ....
Moonshine Willy
The high flying acrobatics of America's favorite mutant bluegrass pop band continue. This time around, in addition to a full-time fiddle player and mandolinist, they've added producer extraordinaire Chuck Uchida (Old 97's, Grievous Angels, Smoking Popes, Scroat Belly) on the big guitar. This
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Murder By Death
Known for their uniquely brooding sound that frequently conjures desolate imagery, on Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon Murder By Death capture a familiar tone but also explore new territory, adding a further refined sophistication and even richer, full-bodied sound. The varied album ranges musically from
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Neal Pollack and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts
When I'm cruising around in my '83 Delta 88 bemoaning the fact that all the radio stations suck, I sometimes wish for sweet release through the audio-book medium. If I had a better radio than the standard AM/FM I would probably even buy some. Most likely you are not constrained by such an ancient
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Nora O'Connor
For years around Chicago, Nora has been an in-demand hired assassin of singing to the hit-making hoi polloi, but now it is time (long overdue) for her to scootch over just a little bit to center stage where she belongs.
We are pleased to present her first solo CD, Til the Dawn. This ....
Old 97s
This one'll set your hair on fire. True punk mettle fearlessly cross-bred with deep country soul. The Bloodshot debut by the favorite sons of Dallas is chock full of blinding stutter guitar, soaring vocal harmonies, and keen songwriting. Don't be left behind, scratching your head wondering where
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ou asked and asked some more. Then you started to beg. The groveling was nearly unbearable. You, John Q. Public, demanded the re-release of the Old 97s' long out of print singles and your pals here at Bloodshot finally got the message.
But with this little package we've outdone ....
Old Town School Of Folk Music
THESE KIDS TODAY with their sequencers, samplers, loops,
USB interfaces, pitch controllers and iPods holding 5,000
songs. They think music was invented yesterday by them and
their buddies and tunes are spit out at the push of a button in
patterns of Zeroes and Ones. Ain’t it time we all
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Let the Folk-a-bration continue! Hot on the heels of 2006’s Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook, Volume One, comes Volumes Two and Three of a four volume series. In a specially priced 2 CD set, 42 folk music classics are given a good going over by notable recording artists and the school’s
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The final installment in an epic series from Old Town School Recordings and Bloodshot Records: The Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook, Volume Four.
The songs on The Old Town School of Folk Music Songbook, Volumes Four are, in fact, drawn for the Old Town ....
Paul Burch
As evidence that Nashville is still home to innovative and creative musical forces, we present Paul Burch’s Fool for Love, a collection of songs commiserating on the joys and train wrecks of love in modern life. It's his fifth record, but first for his fans at Bloodshot, and it delivers a primer
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INSPIRED BY THE INPUT of friends he didn’t know he
had, East to West, Paul Burch’s sixth CD, is full of spirited
storytelling, both rousing and solemn, each song unfolding
like a small movie. The result is, at once, an effusive toast
to music and an unflattering look at a modern world
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Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Here are the Pine Valley Cosmonauts and a dazzling array of guest singers (including Steve Earle, Rosie
Flores, Brett Sparks (Handsome Family), Janet Bean (Freakwater), Neko Case, Edith Frost, Paul
Burch, Sally Timms and many more) delivering 18 songs penned by such luminaries as Hank
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They’re at it again. Actually, the plugging away never really stopped. Here the Pine Valley
Cosmonauts – another “side band” of Jon Langford, this one a loose amalgamation of veteran
players who’ve paid homage in the past to the likes of Bob Wills and Johnny Cash – are back with
THE
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Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys
Man, oh man, will the embarrassing farce that is contemporary country music ever end? Today’s batch of interchangeable hunks and bimbos that are being Xeroxed out of Nashville have as much to do with what makes country music special as The Starland Vocal Band did with channeling the rebellious
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More songs of emotional wreckage done in the key of Bakersfield. Classic honky-tonk stylings and instrumentation provide the foundations for Rex's writing, some of the best COUNTRY songwriting that we've heard since the days of Johnny Paycheck and Charlie Walker. We mean it, man. You'd have to
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Lately, there's been an accendence of the "emo" genre. You know, hardcore punk where emotions are worn on one's sleeve. Well, Rex and the Boys play emo in it's most pure and classic form; hardcore honky-tonk heartbreak. And with Pete Anderson (Dwight Yoakam's right hand man) at the controls
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How many different ways can you write about heartbreak?
Rex answers: How many different hearts are there?
These days, it seems that originality in Country music is an oxymoronic proposition. The hillbilly highway to the top is jammed with tour buses full of publicists, make-up artists, ....
Rico Bell
A Celtic-infused brand of Leeds high lonesome soul from the suave and lady-killing accordionist of the Mekons. Produced by the indefatigable Jon Langford (who lends his fractured guitar work as well), backed by the crack rhythm section of Harry and Dave Trumfio (of The Pulsars), and featuring
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Have you ever gone to that dark, non-descript bar at the end of your street in the middle of a sunny weekday to see who's there? Darkside of the Mersey is an accumulation of stories from just such a bar.
On his 2nd CD for Bloodshot Records, Mekons accordion man Rico Bell and his band The ....
Robbie Fulks
The surprise hit of '96, veteran of the first two Insurgent Country comps, Robbie finally strikes out on his own.
Let's let him describe it: "13 original country songs with an early 50's production aesthetic (hot vocals, robust bass, live instrumental tracks) and arrangement, reviving ....
Brothers and sisters, do you hear that ringing? It ain't the ice cream man, it's the death knell for all the Nashville pretenders. South Mouth provides a knock out blow to those who think being a country singer means painted-on jeans, a flawlessly manicured mustache, and a mysterious fondness for
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After a brief and bizarre stop in the no-man's land of major label short-sightedness and compulsive merging, this train ported again at your favorite station, and it's headed for Hitsville, baby. So fasten your seatbelts: we may take a turn through some dark and unfamiliar territory along the
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No, not the soundtrack to one of those awesome 50's sci-fi flicks about the perils of nuclear war.
This record is a fantastic collection of country covers. But don't think that Robbie will expose you to the vast and rich heritage of country music through no-brainers like Hank, Buck, Haggard ....
Roger Knox and the Pine Valley Cosmonauts
Roger Knox, aka the Koori King of Country or Black Elvis as he’s known in his homeland, is an Aboriginal Australian Country & Western singer with a honeyed bear hug of a voice. Jon Langford (Mekons, Waco Brothers) met Knox on a visit to Australia several years ago. When he heard of ....
Rosie Flores
With over half a century of hard roots-rabbling between them, Rosie Flores—the Rockabilly Filly, and Jon Langford—head Mekon, Waco Brother and conductor of the Chicago-based collective the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, blast a sonic contrail stretching from Texas to Wales, from the dusty hill country to
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When Rosie Flores recently sold a vintage guitar to
a fellow Austin TX musician, he dubbed the beat up
beauty a real “working girl’s guitar.” The next day he
called with what would be the title track to her latest
album, but, as he told Rosie, “I didn’t write it, the
guitar did.” It’s a
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Sally Timms
What’s that you say, brother? Having trouble sleeping? Life’s burdens got you staring at the ceiling all night? Is the old brainbox cluttered with galloping, unrelenting feelings of loss, regret, and inadequacy? Booze and pills lost their effectiveness in getting you to sweet
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Sanctified Grumblers
Sanctified Grumblers write and play acoustic music in the vein of the old blues, jug band, and old timey traditions with a sprinkling of New Orleans rhythms. The trio was formed by Chicago musicians Rick Cookin’ Sherry, founder of Devil in a Woodpile and uber-picker Eric Noden. Their music succeeds
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Scott H. Biram
It's been said that rock and roll came from the blues on the right hand and country on the left; Scott H. Biram is the middle finger on both. A CD full of exhilirating, menacing, primal, tormented, raw charm. BEWARE!!! Biram's blend of punk, delta blues, and hillbilly throws down the boogie
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PREACHING FROM THE FIRST CHURCH OF ULTIMATE FANATICISM, keeping
one eye on the collection plate and the other on the girls with short skirts in
the front row, Austin’s Scott H. Biram returns to his pulpit, delivering more of
his trademark call-and-response psychobilly gospel with his looming
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Most one-man bands are one-trick ponies. One riff, one sound, one gimmick, one bucket, whatever. Not Scott H. Biram. The man can and will throw down some feral, amped-up Delta blues just as easily as a stone cold country weeper that'll get the girls all dewy-eyed with faith and desire, or even a
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Biram’s fourth full-length for Bloodshot is a decidedly different record for those who have been following SHB’s road-driven career. Recorded at Biram’s home studio in Austin, Texas and mastered by Jerry Tubb of Terra Nova Mastering (Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam), Bad Ingredients
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Scroat Belly
Inelegant lyrics, incomprehensible time changes, indecipherable artwork, commercial indifference and critical indignation. The legend of Scroat Belly won’t die, so if re-releasing this record doesn’t kill it….
Let’s just put it out there--if you don't love Scroat Belly, you’ll hate them. If ....
Split Lip Rayfield
Friends, Welcome to the Bluegrass Apocalypse. Split Lip Rayfield, with their banjo, acoustic guitar, and stand-up bass attack have been wowing the folks around the Wichita and Lawrence areas for years. Maybe you're titillated by the prospect of a 3-piece acoustic outfit somehow managing to sound
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Look out for those clouds on the horizon and keep your hands upon the wheel. Feel the air get creepy still. You better get in the cellar 'cause there's a tornado coming. Blowing in off the Kansas plain we got ourselves another genuine record from Split Lip Rayfield.
You may remember Split ....
Nothing comes easy for our favorite hombres from Kansas. Mix up some bad women, bad jobs, bad autos, and bad luck; well that's more than most men could handle. Luckily, these fellas are good at channeling their aggression. Maybe that's why they're on the road so much. When the going gets
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Here’s the latest record from everybody’s favorite bluegrass badasses, Split Lip Rayfield. Have the SLR boys been laying low since 2001’s Never Make It Home? No way! They’ve been burning up the highways and byways of America, transforming their trademark string band combustion from racecar to
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Th' Legendary Shack Shakers
Hey you! Yes, YOU!!! Need some music to jump start your drab little life? Craving the best Southern Gothic rock & roll amusement you can get for your hard-earned money? Have you grown sluggish and indolent from years of going to clubs, sticking your hands in your pockets, and wondering what
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The Blacks
One of the truly original and exciting bands to emerge out of the late 90's Chicago, The Blacks burned bright for two albums (1998's Dolly Horrorshow and 2000's Just Like Home) then flamed out under their own volatility. After a decade of life's detours and dead ends, and after a buoyant
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The Bottle Rockets
"Zoysia (I don't know what it means either) is their best album ever — tuneful, soulful, and best of all, loud." Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly
Their eighth album and second release on Bloodshot Records, Zoysia is the latest sample of The Bottle Rockets' tenaciousness. Produced by ....
Imagine one of the greatest working bands on the planet divining the vibrations of one of the greatest unheralded ambassadors of Rock Music and infusing them with their own ample powers of Mojo. Imagine no more, friends. The Bottle Rockets deliver all this heightened consciousness and more on this
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In a country where interstates don't take you to new places, but to the same places, where everywhere you go you've already been or you've just left, The Bottle Rockets' new album absolutely nails a sound and a vibe with a palpable sense of place. Lean Forward is suffused with the determination
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The Rockets re-imagine and re-tool 13 songs from their vaunted catalog, including songs from albums long out of print.
Here's the skinny from the band:
"Although it may not be obvious, most Bottle Rockets songs are written on acoustic guitar. In contrast to being identified as a loud ....
The Detroit Cobras
Baby is the Detroit Cobras' third full length CD and first US release in four years. Produced in part by Greg Cartwright of Reigning Sound, who is also a touring member of the band, giving props to the lost stars and misfits of soul's glory days.
Possessing a vocal powerhouse at the ....
When we come into this world, some of us get tapped on the head by God, the Grand Poobah, Mother Nature or who/whatever and are granted extraordinary gifts; there is no question that Detroit Cobras’ singer Rachel Nagy rolled snake eyes at the Grand Casino in the Sky. With Tied And True, their first
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The Meat Purveyors
Puttin' the ass back in bluegrass, these Austinites arm themselves with fiddles, mandolins, and guitars and run headlong into the battle of Left Hand Hate and Right Hand Love. On the right hand, there are exquisite renditions of anthems from Merle, Elvis, and Bill (Monroe, that is). On the left
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Oh, how we cried into our pillows when the Meat Purveyors broke up. Watching them pack it in was like hitting a puppy with your car--indescribably sad (or morbid depending on your bent). No matter. Though they barely tolerate each other these days, the lure of cash and making each other miserable
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Try as they might, the Meat Purveyors just can't seem to be quit of each other, they are the Brett Favres of Austin. AND they've reclaimed their original moniker, TEXAS Meat Purveyors. We couldn't be happier.
After swearing up and down in 2006 that they would never perform together again, ....
The Riptones
Come and get it. You've heard their three compilation contributions, and you've heard their two self-released CDs, now hear them Bloodshotified. Produced by Ian Spanic (of roots-maven Spanic Boys fame), this is an E-string heavy affair, full of Sun Sessions era rhythm section heroics. All of it
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The Riptones' love of happenin' American roots music is so giddy and unaffected, you'd think they were wide-eyed little kids at Christmas staring into a department store window full of cool old records by Ricky Nelson, Webb Pierce, Carl Perkins, the Everly Brothers, Hank Thompson, and Elvis
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In a world of frighteningly rapid change, some things never go out of style. In a time when we're all so savvy with the newest electronic gadget and so at ease with music being reduced to a computer science problem to be solved, some things are just plainly good. The Riptones' brand of roadhouse
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The Sadies
This debut CD will blow your doors off. Looking cool as Sinatra in Man With the Golden Arm, The Sadies are one part Ennio Morricone, one part Rolling Stones circa '63, one part Flat Duo Jets, one part Stanley Brothers, one part Los Straightjackets, half-part Stooges, and one part
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Toronto’s masters of musical mayhem have returned to the surface with a gem, a monster. After months of laboring blindly in a dark, moist, cavernous laboratory--the walls slick with the blood and the love of their musical forebears, the dank air charged with reverb, fuzz, and delay, and the
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Toronto’s favorite whacked-out six-string mayhemists are back with their third CD. The Sadies have spent the past year or so criss-crossing the U.S. of A. in their beat-up van carrying steamer trunks full of martini glasses and discount wines, saddlebags stuffed with Kinks, Music Machine, and
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The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
Chicago-based chamber pop collective The Scotland Yard Gospel Choir aren’t your typical debauched rock stars reveling in a pastiche of self-destructive clichés. Leading a band that’s shared the stage with both the Arcade Fire and Ira Glass, Spoon and Dave Eggers, it’s clear that lead singer,
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Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. Crushing breakup inevitably ensues. Boy drops out of life, retreats to family’s farmhouse in Northern Wales. Boy – along with rest of band - makes great record, triumphs over adversity.
Rock’s bread and butter is romantic tragedy. The latest ....
The Silos
“The band’s austere style inflects the astringent twang of
The Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds
countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons.”
— Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES
AFTER 20 YEARS as the leader of The Silos, it would be easy for Walter Salas-Humara to sink ....
The Sundowners
To simply call The Sundowners a country-western trio is to diminish their free-swinging landscape of long-neck bottles, neon lights and bright ideas. They held court in several downtown Chicago honky tonks from 1959 to 1989 and provide a direct, important historical roadmap of Country’s Northward
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The Yayhoos
Remember your old neighbors, the guys who were always out in their driveway working on their ’72 Camaro? They would crank tunes on the shitty AM-FM car radio or of course the 8-track. The music was laden down with heavy rock guitar riffs and spiked with nasty-ass screamin’ vocals, and it sure
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Trailer Bride
This Bloodshot debut CD is rife with jittery hillbilly noir from the piney woods of North Carolina. Imagine the Velvet Underground stoked on Brunswick Stew instead of heroin. Join them as they hop into their Rocket 88 and head to the crossroads (listening to REM, Barbara Manning, and the Gun Club
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Have you ever been down south in August? Its 102 degrees and the moss is practically sweating. Everything is moving just a little bit slower. Trailer Bride makes you feel it.
On Whine De Lune, Trailer Bride have perfected their spooky, stompy, swampy country; the kind of sound that could only ....
As is their wont, Trailer Bride takes you south, where the woods are full of uneasy stories, where time and history are fluid notions--able to jump out from behind tangled bushes to wreak havoc on your present and where the shadows are full of weary, haunted characters.
On their third record, ....
Chapel Hill’s Trailer Bride have tapped into such disturbing, shimmering and exhilirating vibes on Hope is a Thing With Feathers, their fourth record for Bloodshot. The Bride comes from a place where Apocalypse is not just a word, but a living, breathing ghost lurking in the Southern Gothic
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Various
Here's where it all began. Here's where the term was coined. Inspired by a dream, a vision, or perhaps a tequila-induced frenzy coupled with a healthy disdain for most contemporary music. Volume One is a generous helping of Chicago's own roots-rockin'est shit-kickin'est Insurgent Country
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Sure, the very name "Nashville" has become synonymous with the putrefaction and commodification of a rich tradition of folk artistry, but we still chose to go straight to the enemy's own backyard and dig up some fine tunes they unwittingly forgot to destroy. As it says in the liner notes:
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Hold on to your hats for this one. First off, a history lesson (don't give me that look, I'll make it short). The Boone County Jamboree was a staple of the airwaves in the Ohio valley in the 40's and 50's. With its powerful signal, and the fact that King Records was also located in the city,
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Remember being a snotty little punk rocker in the early and mid-Eighties? Remember thinking that anything recorded more than 4 months ago was old, irrelevant fluff ready for the scrap heap? Remember thinking that anyone knowing anything about roots music, let alone playing it, was an object of
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Various
If you've thought Bloodshot rocked you before, brother, you ain't heard nothing yet. This behemoth jumps on your ass with two CDs (over TWO HOURS OF MUSIC), holds you down and pours 40 new and unreleased tracks right down your gullet. You'll be bloating up with music from EVERY SINGLE artist on our
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Various
Singles. We at Bloodshot have always loved them. Seven inch slabs of sweet, black petroleum by-products are the perfect medium for delivering a concentrated shot of musical delight
--no time for filler, dance mixes, or painfully long bass solos--just time to get in and get out before anyone gets
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The past few years we've noticed some of our friends have disappeared
from the regular concert-going scene, only to show up, bags under the
eyes and a frantic, twitchy no-sleep look, at some of the frequent
daytime shows that happen around Chicago. It's then that we realize
that these hard-core
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At their worst, soundtrack albums are merely a few well-placed, dust-covered classic rock anthems re-packaged for a quick sale to dim-witted movie goers. At their best, as with the works of Ry Cooder and Ennio Morricone, they reflect the tone and spirit of a movie, become an extension of it, as
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Here we beat the national bushes to turn out cuts from musical upstarts from SF to NYC. Returning Chicago artists include Moonshine Willy, Jon Langford (with the Waco Brothers), The Riptones, and Robbie Fulks (recorded by Steve Albini).
Expanding our revolutionary bases to the far reaches of ....
“There’s nothing like a bunch of renegades paying tribute to a renegade – and that’s what you’ve got on Hard-Headed Woman: A Celebration of Wanda Jackson.” And that’s how writer (and co-producer of this cd) Holly-George Warren begins the liner notes for this outing, a collection of songs associated
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1994: The year that saw, amidst a spasm of hubris, boredom and naiveté, the release of Bloodshot Records’ first CD, the compilation, For A Life of Sin. 11 years and 125 releases later, we’ve learned some hard lessons and spent many a sleepless night wrestling in the venal snake pit that is the
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We culled some of the finest live performances committed to tape for our first DVD release, Bloodied But Unbowed: Bloodshot Records' Life In The Trenches, including performances by Bobby Bare Jr, Wayne "the Train" Hancock, Split Lip Rayfield, Jon Langford, Graham Parker and many
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Larry Brown’s business card listed his occupation as “Human Being”. Like many other professional human beings, Larry loved music. He felt music and it showed in his writing. As he moved through the world, Larry got to know a lot of musicians, and a lot of musicians got to know Larry, either
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Look Directly Into The Sun: China Pop 2007 features 18 Beijing pop, punk and rock bands. Members of Snapline, China MC Brothers and Carsick Cars are heavily featured on Made in China, Martin Atkin's China Dub Soundsystem album as well. Carsick Cars have opened for Sonic Youth in Vienna, Prague and
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Waco Brothers
With the release of their DEBUT album, the line in the sand has been drawn; it is time to round up the ignorant and the ignoble. Hard Country's fiercest line-up--Jon Langford (Mekons), Dean Schlabowske (Wreck, Dollar Store), Tom Ray (The Bottle Rockets), Steve Goulding (Mekons, Poi Dog Pondering,
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Just when you thought it was safe to like tepid country rock and third-rate indie-rock posturing again, THE BROTHERS ARE BACK!!! On this "wee-CD" (10 songs, 31 minutes, budget-priced--to please the little socialist in all of us), they deliver more of the high-lonesome spit and three-chord frontal
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The second chapter in the saga of Los Hermanos Wacos. Here's a wicked little skunk tossed into the tent of bloated, corrupt excesses. Making good on their promise (or was that a threat??) of their first record, the Wacos deliver a slab brimming with grim romanticism, and joyous, near ecstatic,
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Dateline 1999: With Nashville still cranking out a clanking assembly line of belly-button-baring android bimbos and hat-wearing cyborg hick hunks, and with alt.country and "y'allternative" flinging a stink on Western Wear like the rise and fall of "grunge" tainted the flannel shirt, it's high
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The death penalty is sure a hot topic these days. Some places like Illinois can't seem to get it right as they keep trying to kill innocents and all. Other places like Florida and Texas run their death rows with assembly line style efficiency. In an effort to kill more people more quickly, both of
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Sure, we all know that a Waco Brothers' show is a boozy, sweaty, and loud affirmation of all that is good and righteous in the realm of the rock and the roll. They play as if their lives depended on it.
What often gets lost in the steamy, sozzled aftermath of shows is that, over the course ....
Down from the hills in their fuel efficient mini-van with "The Waco Brothers Invade Jesusland" scrawled on the side in glitter and fire-red lipstick, the Waco Brothers are ready to show off the totems they’ve carved out of the corpses of punk and country.
Times are tough and disasters both ....
Full of shout-along manifestos and strident tomfoolery from each of their seven studio albums, Waco Express lives up to the mandate given to the mastering engineer to "err on the side of massive, fierce and overwhelming." Critical darlings since their unleashing, featuring a scribe-ready lineup
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Waco Brothers and Paul Burch
A COLLABORATION WITH PAUL BURCH
A Chicago band known for its muddy work boots, anarchic stage shows and fondness for committing musical “pure butchery” (the New York Times’ words, not ours) may seem an odd match for the stylish craft and classicism of a Nashville ....
Wayne Hancock
It's Wayne Hancock's fourth CD all told, but the first for his longtime fans here at Bloodshot, and do we ever love it. He possesses one of the most instantly identifiable voices in roots music and wraps it around whacked-out hillbilly barnburners, dusty desert ballads, and Hank Williams meets
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The South Austin Sessions is a six song LIMITED EDITION CD-EP that was available only on our web site and on Wayne's tour.
This EP shows off Wayne's more jazzy side. Hot guitar and trombone help Wayne expand his sound. Three swinging originals and three choice covers add up to a neat little ....
At a time when many self-proclaimed musicologists and genre snobs want to bottle America’s rich musical legacy, label it, and put it on a museum shelf so it can be safely experienced, Wayne and his band of accomplices will have none of it--they aim to air it out every night and let it
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THE UNDISPUTED KING OF JUKE JOINT SWING—that
alchemist’s dream of honky-tonk, western swing, blues,
Texas rockabilly and big band – Wayne “The Train” Hancock
has been, in his own words, “the stab wound in the fabric
of country music” since his stunning debut, Thunderstorms
and Neon Signs, in
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"I want to jump the blues and make the hard times swing."
So opens Wayne The Train's new album, and it's a deft proclamation of his unwavering belief in the curative energy of juke joint swing.
Man, there ain't a problem that can't be salved by his brand of stripped down, ....
The legendary Big Bill Broonzy once said, “Blues is a natural fact, is something that a fellow lives. If you don’t live it, you don’t have it.” Although his new album Ride isn’t the classic blues of Big Bill, Muddy or B.B., enduring honky tonk powerhouse Wayne ....
Wee Hairy Beasties
The young will thrill to the sing-a-long tunes about ducks, squirrels, flies, newts and turtles, while the music geek in all of us will marvel at the dexterous harmonica and National steel guitar playing and super excellent vocals. All will benefit from the important lessons about road safety,
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Whitey Morgan and the 78's
Outlaw’s always been the rough-around-the-edges, tuff guyuncle at the country music family picnic. Denim and leather, not Stetson and Nudie. Hair by Pennzoil, not Pomade. But,in the right hands—Haggard, Paycheck, Junior, Willie and Waylon and now Whitey Morgan—Outlaw is more than beardsand
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