In case you were planning to go tonight

Since I recommended this, I thought I should pass along that the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival tour stop in Denver on 9/22 has been canceled due to sickness. Bummer.

some things

Completely missed:
a new book out by one of my favorite (fairly) young Texas writers - Oscar Casares. His new book Amigoland apparently came out last month, and I'm not sure Texas Monthly even reviewed it.

I had intended to write a full blog about this:
and I was also hoping to interview Buddy Wakefield, but he didn't have time for an email interview and I didn't have time for a phone interview. So oh well. Nonetheless, tonight in Denver, the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival tour makes a stop at the Crossroads Theater. Don't worry if you don't like slam poetry, this is nothing like that.
























I can't deny:
that I'm a little disappointed that preorders of the new Avett Brothers LP, bought directly through the band's site, have not yet arrived, while it's been available in indie record stores for over a week now.

If you still use myspace:
have you noticed that bands can now message you about upcoming shows? Yeah, it sucks and makes myspace even more useless.

Would it be cruel to name a kid "Wendy":
if your last name was "Saintsgomarchingin"?

If you are a fan:
of Justin Townes Earle, you can vote for him here in the Nashville Music Awards in the Best Music Video and Best Americana Album categories. Note: you have to vote in all the categories, some of which aren't very interesting, but it still doesn't take that long.

You don't have to agree:
but I think Brad Paisley's recent "Welcome to the Future" video may be one of the most important country music videos made this decade. Can't embed it, but it's linked here. The song itself is pretty good, probably not even his best, but the video makes up the difference. It's not only the content of it, but the recognition of who the audience is for country videos. For all the negative discourse that has been associated with country music, this is one of the more progressive videos made in country music to this point, especially considering the political climate right now.

just stuff

As an astute reader has pointed out:
Zach Galifianakis' Visioneers is actually available on DVD now, as well as showing at some theaters. Seems kind of a shame it never got its time on the big screen.

In case you were wondering:
The winners of the 7" vinyl giveaway were from Florida and California. Nice to see we got some coastal coverage, even if the process was completely random.

New Telegraph Canyon:
is available for Pre-Order at Velvet Blue. I think I might wait for the vinyl version, which I don't think is up yet. Also, catch them with the Old 97s in Fort Worth toward the end of this month or on tour to the west coast in early September.

In the "you probably don't care, but maybe I do" department:
one of the only spoken word artists I still follow, Buddy Wakefield, will be touring the U.S. this fall on the Elephant Engine High Dive Revival, with compatriots Derrick Brown, Shira Erlichman and Anis Mojgani and many others. So glad to see they are hitting Denver and Boulder. Whether you think spoken word is so 1995 or uncool or uninteresting, you should briefly suspend such judgment, because Buddy puts on one of the most entertaining shows around. More on this to come.

No, there is no reason to mention this:
but I found some early Dwight vinyl the other day, and realized I had basically forgotten the genius of his work. Dwight may have done some odd projects over the years in some folks' minds, but of all the major label country artists of the 80s and 90s, I think he may have maintained his integrity as an artist more completely than almost any of the others. Can you think of anyone better?

Very very randomly:
ran across some Ryan Adams news on this blog today. The basic message was that Ryan may be resurrecting an old label he developed some years back to release recordings of some sort.

If you live:
in any of the hipper cities of the western United States, Tour de Fat, from New Belgium beer, may be coming to a city near you. It's a pretty great time, so check it out in your town some time. And if you've got the chance to attend the original event in Fort Collins, it comes highly recommended from me.

Probably not of any interest to you, but...

I know most of my friends basically just tolerate my interest in performance poetry (also know as slam poetry, except that poetry slams have become increasingly boring for the most part). However, over the past few months, I've become more aware of Derrick Brown, who I had the opportunity to see with Buddy Wakefield. You can hardly classify him as simply a poet, although I feel like the more descriptive I am of his performance, the less you are going to be interested in him. Nonetheless, he's kind of a mix of poetry, comedy, music, and a good bit of ridiculousness, to the point that I still can't really tell when he's being serious and when he's not.

What is the best way to make people interested in him? Probably not posting two 10-minute videos, but alas, that's what I'm doing. You don't have to watch. We'll just operate on a Don't Ask Don't Tell policy, so you won't have to feel awkward and I won't have to feel like you are lying about the fact that you care about any of my interests in poetry. I should say that I really can't blame you though, because I haven't been that impressed with poetry slams I've been to, and thus am pretty selective of the poets that I consistently follow.

So, long story even longer, Derrick Brown toured Europe with Cold War Kids some time back, and someone took the opportunity to document that trip. So far, two parts of the video have been posted, and I don't know how much more to expect. (Also, I need to take a minute here to publicly apologize to D____., because we are still sorry about missing the Cold War Kids show you put on back before they got big, which was before people forgot about them again.) There's not really much point to the videos, but they are a fairly decent watch if you can trade in 20 minutes of your facebook time to watch them.





Turns out I wanted him to be in Austin during SXSW so bad that I mistook Austin for Amarillo and posted some jibberish information. And a keen eyed reader gently helped me notice such without calling me an idiot.

Four poets, two revivals, and a request for less beer and more whiskey

I've been meaning to write up a few shows for a while, but time hasn't really allowed for it. That's where it really benefits everyone that no one reads this blog anyway.

First off, almost 2 months ago now, was the Junkyard Ghost Revival. This is the fantastic spoken word tour that made the rounds for about 6 weeks across this nation. Although many guests joined the tour at various stops, the Boulder incarnation of this show featured Derrick Brown, hometown favorite Andrea Gibson, Anis Mojgani, and Buddy Wakefield. I was primarily there for Buddy Wakefield, followed by Andrea Gibson, and otherwise knew little about the other two. What we got was an awesome night of spoken word performance. (Called Slam Poetry by some, but it seems that word is out of vogue these days, which is just fine by me.) The great thing about this night was the great diversity of performances - something most wouldn't expect from a show with four spoken word artists. Nonetheless, no one disappointed. Anis showcased his strong suit, which is a quieter and maybe more introspective tone, while Derrick Brown often jumped back and forth over the line between poetry and some...sort...of...performance art or something. It's quite a unusual style, at least from my other experiences, and I was impressed by his near effortless transitions between humor and deeper emotions. Buddy Wakefield and Andrea Gibson, who possess what I consider slightly similar styles really brought out some incredible pieces and reinforced my whole reason for being there. One particular piece by Andrea Gibson, that I think she indirectly dedicated to Buddy, might have been the highlight of the night. It's one of those great experiences that I can't even recall that much about, and since I don't think there is even a youtube link of it, you'll just have to trust me that it was sensational.

Next up was the Revival Tour, featuring Ben Nichols, Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry, Jon Snodgrass, and Austin Lucas. For this collection of songwriters, my primary interests were in Ben Nichols and Jon Snodgrass, lead/co-lead singers of Lucero and Drag the River, respectively. Safe to say that this night did not disappoint. The highlights were probably as much Ben Nichols' in between song banter as anything. At one point, someone brought him a PBR, to which he thanked them but noted that beer just fills him up and thus, whiskey would be preferable. As usual, Jon from DTR played some great songs, although I wasn't close enough to request "Crocodile," which was a shame.

Don't know how long it will stay up, but a set list and recording of the show has been posted on the Lucero message board here and here. The first posting is an expired download link I think and the second is a FLAC download, which I think should be of better quality for those of you who still fight the futile fight to get good sound quality out of digital recordings. If you can get it, there's a great cover of Townes' "Colorado Girl" that Ben sings.

While I wasn't there to experience the event, sounds like the Lubbock Revival tour was quite the spectacle. A brief description of it can be found here. However, I don't think this does it justice, so hopefully you can find someone who went to describe the madness of the night.