Latest Stories

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  The Steel Woods Start Spreading the News - Old and New

  July 8 at 4 a.m.

  In terms of health, influence, and popular usage, in 2019 it’s pretty safe (but sad) to say that printed newspapers have had their best days in the rearview mirror. But Tennessee-based Southern rockers The Steel Woods are conjuring up at least the spirit of ink-smeared broadsheets to deliver their contemporary...

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  American Aquarium Dips Their Toes into Political Waters

  Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 4 a.m.

  Like about half the people in the country, BJ Barham and his wife went to bed late on the evening on November 8, 2016 a bit shocked in how the U.S. Presidential Election was trending, but confident the tide would change when the final results came in. When that didn’t...

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  Tour Manager Recalls "Brilliant Wreck" of Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown

  Thursday, June 21, 2018 at 5 a.m.

  In 1997, Thomas O’Keefe got a call from the management of a rising alt-country band Whiskeytown, asking if he’d be interested in taking on the job of the group’s road manager. He was at something of loose ends professionally at the time. And as the bassist for the punk group...

• The Mount Rushmore of (Good) Bro-Country

  Wednesday, December 31, 2014 at 5 a.m.

  One term will brand 2014 for the sub-par music year it was: bro country. First used in print in August 2013 by New Yorker music writer Jody Rosen to describe mainstream-country boy-band Florida Georgia Line's hit single "Cruise," the term has taken on a decidedly derogatory coloring as tools like...

• Is Country Music Ready for Sturgill Simpson?

  Thursday, December 18, 2014 at 6 a.m.

  So the big new noise in the increasingly noisy -- or static-y -- genre known as Americana is this Kentucky guy Sturgill Simpson. With 2014 appearances on Letterman and Conan and a first-ever Grammy nomination for his sophomore album, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Simpson has been branded (not by...

• The 10 Funkiest Chicken Songs Ever Recorded

  Wednesday, November 19, 2014 at 4 a.m.

  Lonesome Onry and Mean was hanging with some folks the other night when Rufus Thomas' classic Memphis dance tune "Do the Funky Chicken" came on the jukebox. The owner happened to be standing near the volume control and cranked it; the energy level in the place went off the meter,...