3×3: Ira Wolf on Gillian Welch, Getting Magical, and Grossing Out

Artist: Ira Wolf
Hometown: Missoula, MT
Latest Album: The Closest Thing to Home
Personal Nicknames: N/A

What song do you wish you had written?

“I Can’t Make You Love Me”

Who would be in your dream songwriter round?

Gillian Welch, Ben Gibbard, Sam Beam, Gregory Alan Isakov

If you could only listen to one artist’s discography for the rest of your life, whose would you choose?

Gillian Welch or Iron & Wine

 

You belong among the wildflowers, You belong where you feel free~

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How often do you do laundry?

Every few weeks, or whenever it’s offered on the road.

What was the last movie that you really loved?

Inside Out. It gives me all the feels, and I cry every time.

If you could re-live one year of your life, which would it be and why?

So far 2017 has been the most magical. I traveled to some of my favorite places in the world, spent time with people I care the most for, and recorded my dream album in Nashville.

What’s your go-to comfort food?

Kraft Mac n Cheese with tuna. I promise it’s not gross.

Kombucha — love it or hate it?

Hate it. After seeing a bunch of friends make their own, I’ll never get over the sight of the mother.

Mustard or mayo?

Mustard. Spicy, preferably.


Photo credit: Dennis Webber

Best of: Music City Roots

There really is nothing quite like live music, and what would Wednesday nights be without Music City Roots live from the Factory? If you aren’t lucky enough to be in Nashville, be sure to catch the live stream each week at 7 pm CT. In the meantime, we’ve scoured the MCR YouTube channel to pull together this collection of must see performances you don’t want to miss:

BGS Favorite: Elephant Revival, “Grace of a Woman”

Get ready to sing along to this high-energy song by Elephant Revival. Although no longer a member of this band, Sage Cook’s electric banjo solo is not to be missed, and everyone could use a little more washboard in their lives!

Fresh off the Press: Dori Freeman, “You Say” 

Twenty-five-year-old Dori Freeman made her MCR debut recently with a performance of “You Say.” This live rendition showcases what we at the BGS have already praised Freeman for: an honest voice and lyricism that wrenches right at the heart.

Blast from the Past: Pokey LaFarge, “In the Jailhouse Now” 

Before the Factory, there was the Loveless Café. This 2011 rendition of the blues and vaudeville standard is titled “In the Graveyard Now” on LaFarge’s album Riverboat Soul. The only question we keep asking is why didn’t we learn how to play the harmonica like that!

Seeing Double: The Brother Brothers, “Cairo, IL” 

Part of the beauty of the Brother Brothers lies in the simplicity of their instrumentation and the haunting harmonies that result from the similarity of their vocal tone. Can you tell who is who in this live performance of “Cairo, IL” from December?

The Jam: Nashville Jam, “I’ll Fly Away” 

One of the most popular jams to celebrate the collaborative spirit of Music City is a rendition of the spiritual and bluegrass standard “I’ll Fly Away” performed by host Jim Lauderdale with guests Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Sierra Hull, Liz Longley, Maureen Murphy, and T Bone Burnett. Make sure to watch til the end for an amazing guitar solo by Rawlings on his classic 1935 Epiphone archtop.

3×3: Moonsville Collective on San Luis Obispo, Sriracha Mayo, and ‘Gran Torino’

Artist: Corey Adams & Ryan Welch (of Moonsville Collective)
Hometown: Long Beach, CA
Latest Album: Moonsville II
Personal Nicknames: We usually call Corey “Core” and Ryan “Ry.” I guess we’re too lazy to be bothered with an extra syllable. Matt is “Phantom,” as he wasn’t in any of our band photos for about two years. Dobro Dan is “Dobro Dan” because that’s who he is and what he plays. And Seth is “Tenney,” as his mom added her maiden name on his birth certificate to read “Daniel Seth Tenney Richardson,” though it has become more of a verb lately for some reason …
 

 

Pickin’ & Howlin’ @ojaideerlodge #ojaideerlodge #ojai

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What song do you wish you had written?

CA: “Coffee Blues” by Mississippi John Hurt. He and this tune came along at the right time, a long time ago. He’s the real deal.

Who would be in your dream songwriter round?

CA: Lead Belly, Brownie McGhee, Gillian Welch, and Gary Arcemont — the scientist fiddle player from San Luis Obispo. That would be very satisfying. Proper storytellers, proper entertainers.

If you could only listen to one artist’s discography for the rest of your life, whose would you choose?

CA: Probably Bob Dylan. I bought Modern Times on CD when it came out a decade ago or so, and it just knocked me out. He gets a lot of shit for sounding old, but he is old. This record was as intriguing to me as Blonde on Blonde was the first time I heard it, and I know there’s plenty more in between that I can spend some time with.

 

Dobro Dan / Cow Strap Blvd. #studio #EPII

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What was the last movie that you really loved?

CA: I don’t watch a lot of movies, but the last one that really hung around was Gran Torino. I’ve lived in the same neighborhood my entire life and, if I went into further detail about why the film is so great, I’d have to kick my own ass.

What’s your go-to comfort food?

CA: My wife’s vegetable soup is a warm jacket on a cold day. On the other end of the spectrum, McDonald’s original cheeseburgers.

Mustard or mayo?

CA: Do they not complement each other perfectly on any sandwich? There are days when I opt for the honey mustard. Sometimes it’s the sriracha mayo. The simplest things need not change.

How often do you do laundry?

RW: Whenever the hamper tells me to. I’m still trying to figure out what day is the least crowded down at the laundromat. 

If you could re-live one year of your life, which would it be and why?

RW: The year I was born, of course. I remember the world entrance light being so bright and beautiful and the swirling donkeys above my crib. The comfort of the rocking chair always eclipsed the discomfort of the diaper rash.

Which Whiskey is your favorite — Scotch, Tennessee, Myers, Shivers, or Gentry?

RW: Tennessee, I suppose. Scotch always gives me the shivers, Myers will help you meet the bailiff, and Gentry is just too high-class.

‘Nashville Obsolete’

There's a reason why pretty much everything to come from the house of David Rawlings and Gillian Welch immediately goes to the top of every Americana list on planet Earth. They are a pair of formidable talents — artists who precisely evoke the essence of traditional country music yet never sound like Americana mockingbirds.

For this record — a compact set of just seven tunes spanning about 45 minutes — they once again sow the seeds of traditional country, nurture them with modern sensibility, and reap their own unique harvest. There's Nashville in the water and Southern California in the air on "The Weekend," a tune that presents Rawlings and Welch singing harmony from note one. It feels like a 40-year flashback in a Laurel Canyon time machine, with a short stay at Bradley's Barn. "Short Haired Woman Blues," too, has a certain cowgirl-in-the-sand brand of shimmer, a slow-weaving bonfire-on-the-beach sing-along punctuated by gentle string accents. The epic, 11-minute narrative of "The Trip" is a stream of consciousness expedition into the exquisite — their poetry like Dylan, their textures like the Byrds. "The Bodysnatchers" is a supernatural story of supernatural superstitions, the ghosts in the hollow, the monsters under the bed. Rawlings and Welch pick up the tempo for the rail-riding rumble of "The Last Pharaoh," get a bit buttery on "Candy," and shoot for the plaintive soul of the plains on "Pilgrim (You can't Go Home)." 

With Brittany Haas, Jordan Tice, Willie Watson, and Paul Kowert in tow, the team of Rawlings and Welch have made another strong record to add to their growing repertoire.

Gillian Welch: Retracing the Miles of Music

There’s something about looking back at an old photograph — especially a candid one, a moment you didn’t ever know would be dug up and reflected upon some-odd years later — that makes you look at the present differently. Sometimes you recognize long-ingrained mannerisms that still pop up. Other times, you exhale with relief at the fact you’ve kicked a regrettable habit, letting out a smirk or a quick pang of embarrassment at the passing trends you rocked for the cameras or the half-smiles you favored to hide your braces. It’s a pretty personal thing, to take a piece of your life preserved in print and trace the way it led you to where you are now. Gillian Welch’s latest release, Boots No. 1: The Official Revival Bootleg, is the musical incarnation of that kind of endearing deep-dive into the past.

“I hear me before I really sound how I sing,” says Welch of the 21-song release, which is comprised of early demos and unreleased recordings from the time period leading up to her breakout debut, Revival, in 1996. “My voice is in there, but it's just not quite as focused, and there aren't as many miles on me. Dave [Rawlings] and I often talk about being able to hear the miles on a singer. There's just no substitute for the years and the hours and all of the gigs — literally, all the miles.”

For an artist like Welch, whose careful interpretation of bluegrass and gospel music effectively laid the groundwork for today’s thriving Americana scene, rewinding the mileage is all the more rewarding. A 1993 living room tape of “Orphan Girl,” for example, reveals a lighter, higher vocal than the one fans came to know three years later. (It’s a thrill, too, to realize that Emmylou Harris likely decided to record the number based on this very tape.)

“[These sessions] were some of the first times I was ever recorded, and you can hear my influences,” Welch says. This act of retracing early work is one she’s enjoyed as a fan of other artists, too. “I think it's interesting to hear where they started and what they changed. One of the most fascinating things, when you hear really early recordings of singers who you know so well, is that you hear them before they've really become themselves.”

In addition to the novelty of hearing a greener Gillian on the more popular songs from her catalog, Boots No. 1 also boasts songs like “Wichita,” which appeared on set lists and a live DVD but never made a proper album, and “Dry Town,” which was written by Welch but recorded by Miranda Lambert and Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

“I guess we just didn't feel like they fit in. I don't think we had any agenda, didn't have anything against these songs. We're really album-oriented artists,” says Welch. “This was a great way to have them come out in to the world, because they really make sense in context with Revival.”

The sessions for Revival began in the Summer of 1995 in Los Angeles, bounced down to Nashville in the Fall, and wrapped up back in L.A. at the end of the year. These recordings formed the basis for the archival project — after all, the fact that these forgotten sessions were mixed live was an unusual luxury.

“This is very rare now, and was fairly uncommon in the mid-'90s,” notes Welch. “This would have been how people were making records in the '60s and before. But it was great for this project because it meant that we actually had mixes of takes that never got used, alternate takes. People these days aren't often in that situation.”

Welch had lived in Nashville for about three years when the recordings featured on Boots No. 1 went to tape, mostly performing as a duo with partner Rawlings in small clubs and on writers’ rounds while finding a voice as a songwriter. “We were playing as much as we could,” she says, though the out-of-town gigs were only beginning to roll in.

“I had moved to town with two songs,” she says. “By the time we were going in to make Revival, I was going into the session with something like 35 songs. It had been, for me, an incredibly productive couple of years.”

Specifically, she cites a songwriting competition at North Carolina’s Merle Watson Memorial Festival as the catalyst for better gigs and more credibility as a writer, and the community she found there continued to push her forward.

“After that, people like Peter Rowan, and Tim and Molly O'Brien, and the Nashville Bluegrass Band, all these people suddenly knew who we were and started asking us to open for them. The bluegrass world was really the first place where we got acceptance. That was our home,” she says. “Actually, the night that I met T Bone [Burnett], we were opening for Peter Rowan at the Station Inn in Nashville.”

Burnett was the perfect fit for Welch and Rawlings in the studio, but if the final product he helped to sculpt on Revival sounds like a departure from what listeners hear on Boots No. 1, it’s not because the veteran producer was out to change their sound.

“Dave and I knew what we liked,” says Welch. “We really did, going into it; but even so, it's hard when you're that young and you've never done any recordings to just go in there and do it and feel confidence. He gave us that strength — not even to mention the fact that he knew his way around record-making like crazy. Nothing got put on that record that Dave, T Bone, and myself weren't happy with.”

That attention to detail is as evident today as it was in 1996 and, although each of the songs on Boots No. 1 is its own glimpse into Welch’s roots, each half of the double album stands as its own: a Revival for parallel universes.

“Dave felt very strongly that whatever we made should be playable like a record, not feel like a library project. I felt very strongly the same way,” she says.

These recordings may have been cast aside as the songs themselves evolved into live anthems and borrowed cuts. But to hear them emerge unchanged as puzzle pieces that fit together in such a meticulously curated collection as Boots No. 1 is a compelling message for any artist or maker: that even the less-polished parts of the past can be a vital part of the future.

“I hear a starting place to where we ended up going, and hopefully that's interesting to people. I know, as a listener, it's interesting to me,” she says. “Obviously we play [the songs] a little differently, and our voices are a little different now, but I still understand them, and I think that's because of how we wrote them. We wrote them for them to have everything you need to connect with them, right there.”


Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker: Exploring the Spectrum of Melancholy

The way British singer/songwriter Josienne Clarke describes herself — as the committed harbinger of melancholy — brings to mind the spirit, if not the letter, of Sir John Everett Millais’s haunting painting “Ophelia.” Capturing Shakespeare’s tragic character mere moments before she drowns herself, Millais positions her against a lush landscape so beautiful it contradicts the melancholy writ large across her face. He captures in a frame life’s duality: how the dark exists within the light, how everything contains at least a piece of its opposite. In music, Clarke captures a similar theme, fascinated as she is with the spectrum of melancholy. She and her musical partner, Ben Walker, have a penchant for sad songs, either penning original compositions or interpreting traditional folk tunes that take advantage of the weighted solemnity in her voice. Walker’s arrangements punctuate her writing without adding too much to what she’s saying or leaving her words so bare they freeze. It’s an approach which won them the 2015 BBC Folk Award for Best Duo.

The pair made their Rough Trade Records debut in 2016 with Overnight, which showcases Clarke’s razor-sharp precision for striking upon despondent moments. Paradoxically, they tend to be happier times. On “Something Familiar,” she mourns the loss of an afternoon spent with her love. “For there’s no way of keeping the day we’ve just had,” she sings at the very end, her voice filling the speakers while Walker’s guitar strikes a final note before falling silent and letting her voice linger. Theirs is a realistic perspective more than a strictly melancholic one. If the only certain thing in life is uncertainty, there’s grace in allowing moments to breathe and to be.

If Clarke’s commitment to melancholy seems like an overly serious tone with which to present an existentially plagued perspective to the world, rest assured both she and Walker have a droll sense of humor regarding the whole thing. After all, anyone touting themselves along such lines needs a bit of grit — and a good laugh — to go along with the image. Laughter can exist alongside sadness, much in the way beautiful moments contain their own end.

Your voice sounds so mature and your subject matter is so somber, which belies your age, I suppose. Did this subject matter find you or did your voice find that subject matter?

Josienne Clarke: I don’t really think that melancholy is the exclusive privilege of older people. I’ve always been drawn to the darker songs. Even as a child, my dad used to play me songs like “Man of the World” by Peter Green, which is really, really sad. So I think it started off with that as a nugget for songwriting, and it seemed quite normal to me that song matter should be quite reflective and sad.

How did you two get linked up, originally?

JC: This is Ben’s story.

Ben Walker: I was playing electric guitar in a number of indie bands around London, and a mutual friend was doing some mixing for us. He had an acoustic guitar in the room, and I had a go on that just because I hadn’t played one of those — it was a Martin — in a while. He basically said, "Well, if you play acoustic guitar, what are you doing playing electric guitar in these bands that aren’t going anywhere?" I didn’t really know who played that music, and he introduced me to Josienne, who was at the time playing guitar for herself.

Josienne: I was playing bad guitar for myself, and I felt like it was holding me back, so I definitely had a vacancy for a decent guitarist.

You’ve described your writing style as being quite economical. I’m curious how you two work together as writers, but also how much revision plays into it.

JC: I realized what I was always trying to do is to condense an idea down to its smallest form, so managing to express an idea — and it’s usually something like the pain of existing, some sort of existential despair — into the smallest amount of words I could manage. And that’s usually the point at which I take the song to Ben, when I’ve got a kind of melodic and narrative idea down, and he gets involved in the harmony, which chords should go underneath where, and extra instrumentation.

BW: Sort of trying to get the song to a point where nothing else needs to be added and nothing else needs to be taken away. If you take something off, you notice it’s gone; but if you add something on, it feels like it’s overloaded, so it’s trying to find that balance. You can be as economical with that instrumentation as Josi is with the writing structure and the lyrical content, as well.

It seems like it adds a certain melodic emphasis to make the words shine that much more.

JC: I have a bit of a personal hatred of songs that go beyond five minutes. If you have a seven-minute song, you’re getting the song form incorrect. It stops being a song; it becomes a symphony of words. I feel like, when I manage to get it two-and-a-half, three, three-and-a-half minutes … done. That’s a successful songwriting endeavor.

So we shouldn’t expect any kind of major jam session from you two?

JC: We may get bored with our current set-up.

BW: We may record a jazz odyssey.

JC: We can never say never.

Like a folk opera of some sort?

JC: Oh yeah: ”Fopera.”

Are you familiar with "Texts from Your Existentialist” on Instagram, which plays off the "Texts from Your Ex” phenomenon? There’s a certain kind of humor that arises when you’re dealing with existential subjects, and I thought of your tour’s hashtag #MagicalMiseryTour. How do you bring a bit of light or humor to being the “harbinger of melancholy”?

JC: We’re both a bit sarcastic by nature, and I’ve always tried to keep to the principle of taking the music really seriously but ourselves not so much. So, in a live performance, that kind of conversation between the songs is of a comic nature, you know — not slapstick, but kind of dry and sarcastic. I started doing it originally because it made me feel more comfortable in a performance, but I realized that it kind of worked for the audience, as well. In 45 minutes to an hour of really intense music, they kind of need a little break between those three-minute nuggets of sadness. It balances it out, so it doesn’t feel you’ve been through some sort of trauma.

BW: You have to put yourself in the seat of an audience member, not just from a performer’s point of view, but if you were going to come along and see this: How would you feel sitting through an hour-and-a-half’s worth of music where you couldn’t laugh, you couldn’t smile, you couldn’t feel that anything you were doing? The amount of concentration needed to sustain that … you need a little relief in there.

JC: [Laughs] It also stops us from looking hideously pretentious.

BW: There’s also the thing where, although we do take some elements from classical music, we never do the kind of gig where everyone has to turn up in suits and sit in perfect silence from beginning to end.

JC: Well, that’s what I mean. It’s not a recital.

Turning to the album itself, one of my favorite lines on “Something Familiar” is when you sing, “There’s no way of keeping the day we’ve just had.” It’s like every beautiful thing contains its opposite or its demise. How do you live with that knowledge of everything disintegrating?

JC: I think everyone has to live with it, and I don’t know how people manage to live with it without being able to write songs about it.

I think people know it to an extent, but they don’t tap into that awareness as often.

JC: Yeah, maybe I’m the only one constantly banging on about it. That idea has kind of pervaded all of my songwriting in some sense. I just thought of “Silverline” [off Nothing Can Bring Back the Hour]. There’s a line about “for each pound of joy, there’s an ounce of regret,” and it’s that thing where, for every great moment, there’s also a tinge of sadness that that’s the only moment like that you’ll ever have. There’s a real beauty in it, and I feel like it forces me to make the most of those moments more. That knowledge makes me more inclined to cherish the life that I do have.

BW: Until you realize that all things must pass, there are two ways you can approach it: You can make all things last indefinitely. Yes?

JC: I’m just intrigued that you’re involved in this part of the conversation. [Laughs]

BW: I’m just thinking you can sort of embrace it and say, "Well, let’s just try and make everything last forever," or actually you can say, "No, look, we’re just going to enjoy the moment. We know it’s going to end."

You’re not getting attached to any one moment or any one person; you’re able to appreciate them for what they bring and then let it go.

JC: Yeah, I think that’s what we all have to learn to do, and I’m still learning or I wouldn’t still be writing songs about it.

But we tend to get very attached to things and, in turn, get upset when they’re no longer around for various reasons. I think recognizing moments and people for their fleeting nature is quite beautiful. I’ve really been drawn to your lyricism because it touches on that point more than what I’ve heard in a while.

JC: But I think that plays into the overall concept of the album — the cyclical nature — that everything has an element of change built into it. That’s the acceptance you have to make. It underwrites absolutely everything, everywhere, from the seasons to the moon to the tides to the sun. It’s an inevitable part of existence.

You’re not getting any kind of argument from me on that point. Besides your original songwriting, I know you’ve covered Shirley Collins, Kate Rusby, and Jackson C. Frank, among others. What do you look for in someone else’s music?

JC: We never kind of specified that we were folk musicians. That was applied to us, in a way, and we always liked songs — generally sad ones — but those can come from any genre of music. We have quite a wide interest. Our albums have more than just folk songs on them.

BW: Generally, when we’ve found songs that we’ve decided to cover, you actually hear it and go, "Well the sentiment works, the idea works." You start sparking ideas around and going, "Well, it would be great if we tried it like this." It goes from there, really.

JC: I’ll give you a specific example: Gillian Welch’s “Dark Turn of Mind.” I felt they kind of do it as a straight piece of Americana, but I always felt like I could hear a kind of torch song in there somewhere and I guess wanting to try that to see if I could bring that out of it some way. Obviously, I identify massively with its sentiment, to a point that I feel like I would’ve written it, if I feel like she hadn’t got there first. But we’ll say, on a musical level, I could hear another interpretation in listening to it and that’s why that one, specifically, was more compelling than some of her other songs, perhaps.

BW: We’ve never been ones to do a carbon copy of the original, because it already exists. Why would you do it again? So it’s that sort of thing where you reimagine things, or the classic one for us is to learn it, forget it, and then try and re-remember it.

JC: Yeah, you have to feel you have something extra to bring to it. It’s never going to be the original, but you might be able to add something else that makes it a credible interpretation.

That’s why I loved what you did with “Milk and Honey.” It was really something.

JC: That was weird because I don’t know how I thought of it, but I heard the melody and I thought, "Well, this melody will work with ‘Tis Autumn,’ another standard." I’m not sure I could’ve worked it out, technically. I just knew it was, and then Ben is tasked with doing the technical splicing and putting it together.

Like, "Here’s the idea: Structure it and make it work."

JC: Right. “Can you just make this work? Thanks. I know it will. Can you just do it?”

Going back to this Twitter description you’ve given yourself as the "Harbinger of Melancholy" — what do you do if men stop you on the street and ask you to smile?

JC: I find the phrase “Fuck off” is really … or I’ve got a special face. It’s sort of like “meh.” It happens to me quite a lot. People used to come up after the show and say, “Oh, couldn’t you just do one cheery one to fluff it up a bit?” And, obviously, they didn’t get a very good response to that. I was like, “This is what we do. This is what people come for. We’re not going to do happy tunes. If you don’t like it, don’t come. That’s fine.” But we’re not going to change.

As we’ve discussed, you tend to focus on these moments of joy that contain inevitable kinds of sadness. What brings you both joy? What moments do you look for that register in that way?

JC: I guess the weird thing about it for me is performing. It’s really sad music, but nothing makes me more joyful than singing. It’s the sensation of singing something really sad and completely full of joy, which is kind of a bit dark and sadistic and weird.

BW: I think the performance element of it is the thing that brings us both a lot of joy.

JC: And the process of making the album — when I think of putting that thing with that thing and seeing it form, that’s huge fun. Like trying a thing, taking it back off again, putting something else on. The process for us is incredibly joyful; it’s just the subject matter that’s quite sad.

MIXTAPE: WDVX’s Radio Un-Friendly Favorites

As Music Director at WDVX, a large part of my job deals with previewing new releases and selecting which songs will receive airplay at the station. We broadcast on the FM band and are obliged to adhere to FCC guidelines regarding language and decency. In my position, there’s nothing worse than getting a couple of minutes into an amazing new song and having one four-letter word completely derail any chances of that song ever making it on the air. What follows is a list of some of my favorite songs that I can never share with you on the radio. — Nelson Gullett

Lydia Loveless — “Longer”

This song from Lydia’s new album is the one that started me down the path of putting this list together. I first heard the album version of it a few hours before I was scheduled to host a new music show on WDVX. I immediately loved the song and was heartbroken when I came to the lyric that raised the FCC flag. Fortunately, Bloodshot Records always sends radio stations a “clean” version of all of Lydia’s records, and this song — a version of it, at least — is currently spinning at the station.

Lucinda Williams — “Essence”

I should state that I am not personally offended by any of the songs on this list. To the contrary, I applaud any artist who has the conviction to use the precise language in a song that will carry their message and get their point across … regardless of what that does to their radio prospects. Lucinda Williams is a master of conveying emotion and desperation in her songs. Any phrase other than the one she uses here, would have robbed this song of a certain degree of power behind those emotions. There is no need for Lucinda to pull any punches.

Kathleen Edwards — “What Are You Waiting For?”

In many ways, Kathleen Edwards is a very similar artist to Lucinda. There’s often an edge to her writing that feels very earnest and genuine. Here, Kathleen’s exasperation leads her to a point where her exclamation feels fully earned. Like Lucinda, any phrase other than the one she uses would dull the impact of the song.

Greensky Bluegrass — “Windshield”

In contrast to the previous two songs, I do sometimes get a little peeved when I feel like the language that excludes a song from airplay could have just as easily been left out. This is the opening track (and lead single) on Greensky Bluegrass’ 2014 album, If Sorrows Could Swim. The first verse contains a usage of the f-bomb that seems as though it was just wedged into the lyric to add a couple of beats in order to fit the words to the measure. I’ll admit that it did sour my initial impressions of the band and the album. Fortunately, we found plenty of other songs from the album that worked for our station, and the band has done very well on our airwaves.

Todd Snider — “In the Beginning”

Rule number one with any new Todd Snider record that comes to the station: “Read the lyric sheet before playing on the radio.” Todd is a noted offender of offensive language rules and generally requires a little extra screening. When it came our way in 2012, six of the ten songs off Todd’s Agnostic Hymns & Stoner Fables album were deemed too hot for WDVX for various reasons. This is one of them.

Hayes Carll — “She Left Me for Jesus”

It isn’t always explicit language that keeps a song off our airwaves. Sometimes content comes into play, as well. Knoxville is squarely located in the Bible Belt, and we do typically try to stay away from polarizing political or religious topics. Hayes Carll’s tone in this tune is fully tongue-in-cheek, but given the controversy surrounding this song upon its release — and having a feel for how portions of our audience might react to it — we left it off our playlist. Incidentally, this song was named Song of the Year at the 2008 Americana Music Awards. I voted for it.

James McMurtry — “We Can’t Make It Here”

The other Song of the Year winner to never make it to air at WDVX is this 2006 winner from James McMurtry. (I voted for it, too.) This one falls a bit into the polarizing political statement category, having been released squarely in the middle of President George W. Bush’s final term. Ultimately, though, it was language usage rather than legislative leanings that kept us away from this one.

Ryan Adams — “Come Pick Me Up”

This is my favorite Ryan Adams song. Always has been. I don’t know if it’s the loping banjo, or Kim Richey’s backing vocals, or just the sheer languidness of it all … but something about this song has always spoken to me. It certainly can’t be the profanity-laced chorus. Nah … that can’t be it at all.

Gillian Welch — “Revelator”

Full disclosure: I have played this song on the radio many, many times. I listened to it over and over before I ever realized that Gillian slipped in the word she slips in about four minutes into the tune. It wasn’t until I saw Chris Thile and Nickel Creek sing this live a couple years after its release that I actually heard what was always there. I don’t know if Chris enunciated better than Gillian or if I just didn’t want to believe that Gillian says what she says. It sounds completely obvious to me now, but back then …

The Baseball Project — “Ted Fucking Williams”

I love baseball. I love Scott McCaughey, Mike Mills, and Peter Buck. Ted Williams is the “Greatest Hitter that Ever Lived.” I love this song. I can’t play this song for obvious reasons.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus — “I Bet You They Won’t Play This Song on the Radio”

Just for fun … This song from Monty Python and Eric Idle has been running through my head ever since I agreed to write this.

3×3: Anna Tivel on Floating Farms, Popcorn Chicken, and Which Tatum Fits the Bill

Artist: Anna Tivel
Hometown: LaConner, WA
Latest Album: Heroes Waking Up
Rejected Band Names: Anna Tivel and the Mindless Drivel

 

Bellingham here we come! Green Frog tonight with the amazing Freddy & Francine. Show starts at 7pm.

A photo posted by Anna Tivel (@annativel) on

Who would play you in the Lifetime movie of your life?
Probably Channing Tatum … with a wig. Or, more likely, a young Tatum O'Neal. One of those Tatums.

If money were no object, where would you live and what would you do?
I would live above an old rickety used book store/tavern that was also on a farm floating on a river where I would write and play music all day by the window and play gin rummy downstairs with the locals and listen to their daily gripes and swap songs at night.

If the After-Life exists, what song will be playing when you arrive?
"I’m Not Afraid to Die" by Gillian Welch

 

Tonight's gull: Play a show at Pearl Theater in Bonners Ferry ID with @johncraigie!

A photo posted by Anna Tivel (@annativel) on

How often do you do laundry?
I just shower with my clothes on.

What was the last movie that you really loved?
Billy Elliot

What's your favorite TV show?
Human Planet

Morning person or night owl?
Mid-morning to midnight

Who is your favorite Sanders — Bernie or Colonel?
Bernie — I would eat popcorn chicken with him any day.

Coffee or tea?
Tea — Unless I feel like anxiously deep cleaning the kitchen while making frantic phone calls to my sister … then coffee.


Photo credit: Chad Lanning

Five Small Summer Festivals You Need to Check Out

Big festivals like Bonnaroo and Lollapalooza are amazing, if you want to experience hundreds of bands with hundreds of thousands of your closest friends. But in recent years, smaller festivals have made big names for themselves thanks to eclectic lineups, beautiful locales, and the kind of intimacy you just can't experience at some of their larger counterparts. From the curated countryside of Wildwood Revival to the hot air balloon rides at Green River Festival, these five small festivals are sure to leave big impressions.

1. NORTHWEST STRING SUMMIT // NORTH PLAINS, OR
July 14 – 17, 2016

True to its name, the Northwest String Summit brings together all of your favorite string bands for three days of pickin' and grinnin'. The Summit, celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, offers a limited number of spots for RV camping, as well as a variety of ticket options. Catch Yonder Mountain String Band, the Infamous Stringdusters, Greensky Bluegrass, and more on this year's bill. [More Info]

2. HUCK FINN JUBILEE // ONTARIO, CA
June 10 – 12, 2016

Founded in 1975, the Huck Finn Jubilee is one of North America's most celebrated bluegrass festivals. Camp on-site or stay in town and enjoy all that Ontario has to offer. This year's lineup includes Punch Brothers, Leftover Salmon, Earls of Leicester, Della Mae, and many more. [More Info]

3. WILDWOOD REVIVAL // ATHENS, GA
August 26 – 28, 2016

One of the newer festivals, Wildwood Revival is back and better than ever in its third year. Featuring amazing food, artisanal crafts, and Americana music galore, Wildwood offers a complete cultural experience, all located in the beautiful Georgia countryside. This year's lineup features Gillian Welch, the Lone Bellow, and Houndmouth. [More Info]

4. GREEN RIVER FESTIVAL // GREENFIELD, MA
July 8 – 10, 2016

Since its inception in 1986, the Green River Festival has been a festival mainstay for fans of roots music. And with local beer, camping (a newly added lodging option), great music, and hot air balloon rides, it's no surprise why. Headliners this year include Shovels & Rope, Dawes, and Shakey Graves. [More Info]

5. ROCKLAND-BERGEN MUSIC FESTIVAL // TAPPAN, NY
June 25 – 26, 2016

If you're looking to expand your musical horizons, look no further than the Rockland-Bergen Music Festival. The festival, which also highlights non-profit organizations in the New York/New Jersey area, features a wide array of genres, with performing artists including Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Jorma Kaukonen, and New Riders of the Purple Sage. [More Info]


Lede photo via RichardTurnerPhotography via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

 

Michaela Anne, ‘Easier Than Leaving’

In country music, a "weeper" is a real thing: a song that's somewhere between a ballad and a hopeless confessional, that places more emphasis on a forlorn guitar and rare, raw lyricism than showboat vocals (though they're often part of the package, too). Think Hank Williams' and Patsy Cline's saddest moments or, later, Townes Van Zandt's — jewels like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" that struck a perfect balance on the Southern scale with barn-burning honky-tonk, keeping it all delicately teetering in line.

But then the '90s happened and, for better or worse, ballads got the Faith Hill and Shania Twain treatment — notes hit the ceiling and power bombast replaced subtle solemnity. Simplicity, this was not. Luckily, there's been a new bubbling interest in bringing back the genre's delicate, melancholy roots: most of Daniel Romano's Come Cry with Me, Andrew Combs' "Too Stoned to Cry," Margo Price's "Hands of Time," and even Miranda Lambert's "Holding On to You." Now Michaela Anne, on her sophomore album, Bright Lights and the Fame, has an LP full of them — heartbreakers so grounded in self-awareness that they never sound anything but authentic, yet never too indulgent to ring just like diary scribbles.

One of the LP's best is "Easier Than Leaving," which opens with a snapshot in time of a fading relationship: "Sitting at the table, back's against the wall / Coffee's getting colder as I wait for you to talk." Who hasn't felt that tension, taken a last gasp at peaceful air before they fully breathed in the inevitable reality they knew was coming? With a clear quiver, Anne, who moved to Nashville from New York City two years ago, reinvents the lost age of those weepers in the way someone equally schooled in both the forebears — like Williams and Cline — and its modern folk interpreters — like Gillian Welch and Conor Oberst who carried the emotive torch when mainstream Music Row was too busy belting — might. "Easier Than Leaving" might not change her lover's mind and force them to stay, but it will just continue to help put soft, strummed country sadness back on the map.