Raised in South Berwick, Maine, and residing in Austin, Texas, is no one’s idea of a music-industry insider. He writes and sings songs primarily about working-class people and romantics both hopeful and hopeless. That said, it’s also not difficult to hear another element of the fortysomething Cleaves’ past: He was an English and philosophy major at Tufts, and his lyrics are underpinned by both a fine sense of meter and moral perspicacity. You can hear the former — the clever rhymes and forward narrative momentum — in a jaunty song such as “Texas Love Song.”

The other side of Cleaves’ music is his interest in delineating what it’s like to live a hardscrabble existence without too much hope of rising above one’s station in life. This tends to lead Cleaves back to his Maine childhood, where the economy and the climate are frequently difficult, and which can summon up vivid images for him. One of the best of these is “Welding Burns,” in which the narrator recalls the look of his father’s hands and the trapped feeling the older man felt in the work he was bound to do.
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Rod Lockwood wrote: “After 10 years or so of occasional brilliant songwriting — most notably “Outfit,” “Alabama Pines,” “Codeine,” “Streetlights,” “Dress Blues,” and a few others — solid-but-not-great albums, and a protracted battle with the bottle, Isbell emerges on his fourth post-Truckers studio work with a bona fide great album.
“Songs That She Sang in the Shower” is an old-school broken-hearted country anthem that builds to a power-chord driven soaring chorus and that manages to find a way to name drop a Willie Nelson song (“Yesterday’s Wine”) and a Pink Floyd tune (“Wish You Were Here”) in the course of four minutes, which should give you a good feel for Isbell’s musical palette. Killer lyric. “Experience robs me of hope that you’ll ever return.”
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A country/hard rock band formed by Illinois native Jason Ringenberg in 1981, Jason & the Scorchers came careening onto the indie rock scene seemingly out of nowhere (truth was, it was Nashville) with a debut EP whose most killer track (among a slew of killer tracks) was a fire-breathing cover of Bob Dylan’s “Absolutely Sweet Marie.” This amalgam of speedy hard rock fused with Ringenberg’s decidedly country twang, along with the band’s ability to deftly negotiate between Rolling Stones-style stomps and quieter, more melodic acoustic country music, led to Jason & the Scorchers becoming a critically lauded and fairly popular ’80s band. Capitalizing quickly on the attention brought by their debut EP, the Scorchers kicked out two fine LPs, Lost & Found and Still Standing, that sounded perfect for radio, but not so slick as to sound manufactured. With Ringenberg’s yowling voice pushed way up front, the band’s sonic power came from the synchronous playing of Nashville rock veterans Warner Hodges (guitar), Jeff Johnson (bass), and Perry Baggs (drums).
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Dive bars, dirt roads, gun racks: Songs by Cary Ann Hearst don’t shy away from much. It’s no coincidence that the South Carolina singer-songwriter named her dog after Townes Van Zandt — her sound owes a lot to the outlaw country tradition Van Zandt helped define.
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They’re working while I’m missing you those healing hands of time
And soon they’ll be dismissing you from this heart of mine
They’ll lead me safely through the night and I’ll follow as though blind
My future tightly clutched within those healing hands of time
They let me close my eyes just then those healing hands of time
And soon they’ll let me sleep again those healing hands of time

So already, I’ve reached mountain peaks and I’ve just begun to climb
I’ll get over you by clinging to those healing hands of time
I’ll get over you by clinging to those healing hands of time

Tav Falco’s Panther Burns

Train kept a Rolling (live) / Red Headed Woman
45 – 7′ – Frenzi / Rough Trade RT077

http://www.tape.tv/vid/606081

No, not the Pixies song

Long Beach power-pop rascals Tijuana Panthers have returned with the first video off their upcoming album Semi-Sweet. “Tony’s Song” is a monstrously catchy two-minute rager that recharges the polished punx in vintage pop-snarlers like the Only Ones, the Real Kids, or Generation X. The video, hilariously, has way more budget than any punk band has a right to use, ending up as an awesome Grindhouse Zorro where lead Panther Chad Wachtel duels at dawn for the hand of Duchess Francesca!
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No Introduction Necessary! Just two living legends singing together.

John Prine (born October 10, 1946) is an American country/folk singer-songwriter. He has been active as a composer, recording artist and live performer since the early 1970s.

Born and raised in Maywood, Illinois, Prine learned to play the guitar aged 14. Subsequently serving in West Germany with the U.S. armed forces, by the late 1960s he had moved to Chicago, where he worked as a postman, writing and singing songs as a hobby. Becoming a part of the city’s folk revival, he was discovered by Kris Kristofferson, resulting in the production of Prine’s self-titled debut album through Atlantic Records in 1971. After receiving critical acclaim, Prine focused on his musical career, recording three more albums for Atlantic. He then signed to Asylum Records, where he recorded an additional three albums.

In 1984 he co-founded Oh Boy Records, an independent record label with whom he would release most of his subsequent albums. After struggling with squamous cell cancer in 1998, Prine’s vocals deepened into a gravel-voice, resulting in the award-winning album Fair & Square (2005).

Widely cited as one of the most influential songwriters of his generation, Prine is known for humorous lyrics about love, life, and current events, as well as serious songs with social commentary, or which recollect melancholy tales from his life
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Detroit’s The Pizazz write great songs, which, accompanied by the excellent production of The Go/Conspiracy of Owl’s Bobby Harlow make their debut album “Get Out Of My House” one of our very favorite releases! You heard it on cassette first, now experience the full sound of VINYL!
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