Kip Moore in the K102 Roadhouse 4.11.12

Georgia native and MCA Nashville recording artist Kip Moore stopped by the K102 Roadhouse recently to promote his breakout single “Something About A Truck,” a track on his new album Up All Night which is available today.

It was the singer-songwriter’s second visit to the K102 Roadhouse. He first toured country radio in support of his single “Mary was the Marrying Kind,” which he admitted didn’t do quite what he was hoping for on the charts. He now has a top twenty single, “Something About a Truck,” and had the Roadhouse audience of K102 listeners singing along.

Kip’s self-diagnosed ADHD added a personable touch to the intimate three man acoustic set as he shared stories from the road, like his perpetual forgetfulness of leaving his guitar at airports, how he never sticks to the set list and his former life as a beach bum in Hawaii that somehow lead him back east to chase his music dreams.

Since landing in Nashville in 2004, Kip Moore has been working on what he calls his most honest work for Up All Night and also co-wrote two songs on country duo Thompson Square’s debut album (“Let’s Fight” and “All the Way”).

He played an extended Roadhouse set of six songs from his new album, including the self-written “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Drive Me Crazy” and at the request of an audience member “Hey Pretty Girl,” which is his next single [music video]. His vocals were rich, smooth and full but with an edge that a growing number of male vocalists are adopting. Unfortunately, this also makes him less distinguishable in a growing class of new artists. In the future, hopefully he can showcase his songwriting talents with tunes like “Reckless” and “Faith When I Fall” to set himself apart; instead of blending in with cliche, expected (although catchy!) country songs like “Something About a Truck.”

Catch him on the road with David Nail and Billy Currington and connect via any of the social media sites listed below. 

Aly

     

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102]

Ramble Jam 2012 — September 14th & 15th: Lineup announcement!

A two day country music festival with two stages of music from ten awesome country bands in our backyard is only five months away! The 2012 Ramble Jam country music festival lineup was *just* announced and we are beyond excited to share that RANDY HOUSER, THE DIRT DRIFTERS, SUNNY SWEENEY, JOSH THOMPSON, and LEE BRICE will be headlining this year’s show! Also joining the lineup are Rocket Club, Dustin Lynch, Lost Highway, Greene & Hurst and Sara Lynn Wallin with Two Mile Final.

The 2012 festival, taking place Friday and Saturday September 14th and 15th in Farmington, Minnesota is sure to be the biggest and best yet. With a rock solid stone-cold country lineup like this, it is guaranteed to be one big badass barn party! Randy, Sunny, Josh and The Dirt Drifters are some of my favorite artists and to have them all at one festival blows my mind. I am THRILLED about the great music coming to this year’s Ramble Jam — and you should be, too!

FRIDAY | September 14th
Sara Lynn Wallin and Two Mile Final
The Dirt Drifters
Dustin Lynch
Randy Houser

SATURDAY | September 15th
Greene & Hurst
Lost Highway
Rocket Club
Sunny Sweeney
Josh Thompson
Lee Brice

As one of country music’s strongest and most genuine country voices, talented songwriters, and passionate performers, Friday night’s headliner Randy Houser is going to deliver a show unlike anything Ramble Jam-ers have ever heard. The southern rock, blues, and soul influences that fuel the native-Mississippian’s good timin’ southern man anthems (“Boots On,” “Whistlin’ Dixie,” “They Call Me Cadillac,” “My Kinda Country,” and his latest single “How Country Feels”) and pure country ballads (“Anything Goes,” “In God’s Time”) are a more than welcomed addition to the Ramble Jam lineup. Go pick up They Call Me Cadillac, one of my favorite albums — ever, right now!

South Carolinian country singer-songwriter Lee Brice headlines Saturday night’s party, and although his popular singles are slower in tempo (“Woman Like You,” “Love Like Crazy, “Beautiful Every Time”) we’ve been witness to his wild live show ways and know he’ll be throwing down a hell of a performance to close the festival (hopefully including an all-star jam with his friends also on the bill). Lee’s new album, Hard 2 Love, drops (tomorrow) 4.24.12.

The Dirt Drifters, bar-none one of the best new bands on the country scene, is comprised of five talented musicians that met in Nashville and forged their sound; “top-shelf honky-tonk music, bringing vintage sounds and sensibilities up to date in a country landscape hungry to reconnect with its roots” (“Something Better,” “Always A Reason,” “There She Goes”), breaking the mold in a city of factory-milled ripoffs. As a favorite of ours, we know you’ll trust us when we say that their debut release, This Is My Blood (2011), is a MUST-own album. This band has the heart of Springsteen rock n’ roll with Bakersfield country soul and the craft of red dirt songwriting, with an intense live show to boot. The Dirt Drifters will be bringing the honkytonk rock to Ramble Jam 2012!

As the lone female artist, East Texas’ Sunny Sweeney perfectly fits the bill for this South Metro music fest with her authentic honkytonkin’ workin woman tunes (“Everybody Else [Can Kiss My A$$],” “Drink Myself Single,” “Staying’s Worse Than Leaving,” “From A Table Away”) and spunky attitude that we ab-so-lutely love about her. We can’t wait to make her feel right at home at Ramble Jam!


The gritty vocals, rough and rowdy man’s-Man songwriting (“Way Out Here,” “Blame It On Waylon,” “Beer on the Table,” “Won’t Be Lonely Long,” “Coming Around,” “Change”), and killer roadhouse-style live show of Wisconsin-native Josh Thompson is an awesome fit for Ramble Jam 2012. If you’ve ever seen a Josh Thompson show in Minnesota, his adopted home away from home, it’s always a guaranteed GREAT time!


I’m intrigued to hear Dustin Lynch’s music, a new artist from Nashville making waves with his ballad “Cowboys and Angels” currently on country radio, but most of all, it’s great to see that Minnesota’s hottest live country bands like Rocket Club and Lost Highway will be back to take on Ramble Jam round II with more to be announced in the coming weeks!

We had an amazing time with Frankie Ballard, Bomshel (well.. sorta), Rocket Club, Lost Highway and others at the inaugural festival last October. The one-day fest was a fantastically well organized event that drew country fans from all over the Midwest to the south metro for a great experience that gave fans the biggest bang for their buck. I have no doubts that this year’s event will only build upon those successes, and grow to become an even bigger and better full-scale end-of-summer music festival which we are excited to welcome into our annual traditions!

Stay tuned to [Ramble Jam]’s official website, Twitter handle, and Facebook page for ticket information… and we’ll see you at this barn this September!

Beth

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102] 

Chris Young’s Conway Twitty 101 — Minneapolis 4.20.12

“Nobody in here knows who the hell Conway Twitty is…?”

Chris Young 

Chris Young schooling everyone on Conway Twitty then singing “I’d Love To Lay You Down” in the middle of “I Can Take It From There” at Friday night’s On Fire Tour show in Minneapolis might have been the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard. Ever.

It’s hard to find mainstream New School country artists that actually respect the Old School as much as Chris, Miranda Lambert and Jerrod Niemann. Which is EXACTLY why I love them.

Beth

PS — sorry for the screaming! I was loosing my damn mind. :)
PPS — many, many thanks to Kayla for the heads up about this… I was ready with my camera!

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102]

Photos: On Fire Tour | Miranda Lambert, Chris Young, Jerrod Niemann. Minneapolis 4.20.12

See all of the photos on our Facebook page [Indy Sky]

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102]

You Oughta Know: The Band of Heathens

The Band of Heathens
Ed Jurdi, Gordy Quist, John Chipman, Seth Whitney, Trevor Nealon
hailing from Austin, Texas
Music: Live from Momo’s (2006), Live at Antone’s (2007), The Band of Heathens (2008), One Foot In The Ether (2009), Top Hat Crown & the Clapmaster’s Son (2011), Double Down — live in Denver (2012)
http://www.bandofheathens.com/

     

The majority of people don’t know good music when it hits them in the face. This is me, whacking you with a Band of Heathens 2x4. I’ve been digging this band’s music for a while now, and have mentioned them here and there… but there’s not much I can say to do them justice other than: they bleeping rock.

From [Amp]…

The Band of Heathens continues to be distinguished by creative collaboration and their epic live shows, which have earned them a strong fan base of folks who appreciate improvisation and a good jam, but crave a great song. And while songwriting and vocal duties are chiefly handled by the guys at the front of the stage, they are decidedly a five man band, benefitting from the equal input of all. It is truly a band that needs to evolve to survive, and the fans have rewarded that growth at every turn.

Your first step should be to head on over to their website and get ya some FREE STUFF! [BoH/Free] They periodically release live recordings — much to the thanks of fans like me that have never had the chance to see them live. What’s even cooler is I’ve heard that when you see a show, they have what you just heard for sale on a USB drive at the end of the night. Alright now… that is just beyond brilliant. If you’re like me and would kill to rewind your brain back through the live shows you’ve seen… they’ll do it for you. I can’t even explain how much I love this! The only other time I’ve seen this done was for CCR’s last show at Joe’s, where fans could leave with a live recording of the show on a USB wristband. Just think about the kind of production it takes when other artists release a live recording. They require an army of sound engineers, producers, magicians and mixologists to shine that thing up to be deemed suitable for public consumption. Not these guys. Their first two releases were live albums — in fact. It’s what they’re best known for. Their latest, Live at Momo’s from November ‘11, is now available.

Do you know of the “YouTube Vortex?” It’s this mysterious phenomenon of when you click on a YouTube video, click another “suggested video,” another, another, so on and so forth until you realize you haven’t blinked in hours, have drool on your shirt, and don’t know what day it is. You’d do well to find yourself in amidst a Heathens vortex. There are a ton of great live videos around that will tell you everything you need to know about the band’s incredible sound. Music Fog has an especially great BoH series (ok, tell me what they do that isn’t amazing) [Music Fog]. Or — you could do one better and see them on the road [BoH/Tour], which I’ll be doing for the first time next week. FREAKIN’ FINALLY!

The Band of Heathens will be in Minneapolis on April 26th, 2012 playing at the Fine Line with support from Lera Lynn. Don’t miss this!

Beth

Click play.

PS — I know it’s ubercheesey, but I love this. For the record, I like their version of “Look At Miss Ohio” (Gillian Welch) best. A male voice singing that song is TOPS and the guitar solo kills, which Miranda just can’t match. Find it on the One Foot In The Ether record [Spotify].

Music Video: Eric Church, “Springsteen”

Eric Church’s music video for “Springsteen” just premiered via Maxim.com, and it is a beautiful thing. 

Easily the biggest song of his career thus far, currently sitting at #14 on the Billboard Country chart, “Springsteen” is my favorite from Chief and the video perfectly fits the anthemic song. It’s not overthought, unlike so many of Eric’s past videos, but enhances the song. It really feels like it was just yesterday that Aly and I were complaining about the lack of thought that Eric’s music videos were given earlier on in his career. We discussed this very thing in a post from September 2010. Holy flashback [Indy Sky]. My how a hit record changes things…

The suburban neighborhood where they shot the performance scenes (just outside of Nashville in Murfreesboro [more from CMTT]) reminds me so much of mine, which leads me to extend an offer for the Eric Church Band to play my garage anytime they’d like.

I have mixed feelings about his immense popularity now, but I can’t help but feel happy that so many people are exposed to what we’ve loved about Eric Church for so many years. ”Springsteen” is one of the best songs on country radio these days and I’d bet my dog it’ll be his second #1 single. 

The second leg of Eric’s Blood, Sweat & Beers spring tour is currently rolling across the country, with 25 sold-out shows (including Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena) [CMIL] and counting. The tour will stop in Minneapolis with Brantley Gilbert and Jon Pardi at the Target Center on May 17th. We’ve got our pit tickets and are ready to rock!

Beth

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102] 

You Oughta Know: Cody Jinks

Cody Jinks and his Tonedeaf Hippies
Cody Jinks, Jon, Wallace, Joshua Thompson, Brendan O’Neil
Music: Less Wise (2012)
http://www.codysroadies.com
     
 

They don’t write about me in their magazines, I don’t ask for no reviews on the songs that I sing. I’ve never had a lot of friends and I’m alright by that, people keep on coming back

Cody Jinks, Hippies and Cowboys

If you haven’t heard of Cody Jinks and his Tonedeaf Hippies, you’ve been missing out on some of the best Texas has to offer. Hailing from the Dallas/Fort Worth, Cody Jinks has been paying his dues as an independent artist in the unforgiving Texas honky-tonks for years, becoming one of the most traveled Red Dirt artists with thousands of miles American asphalt on his tires and several European tours under his belt.

Beth and I first saw him play late January in a hole-in-the-wall tavern in St. Paul that well suited Cody’s raw songwriting and performance style. He played a flawless set of country classics and originals, including songs from his latest album Less Wise.

It would be easy to compare Cody Jinks’ Less Wise to the work of the greats like Waylon, Merle and Kristofferson, but in doing so would also do him a disservice. While he share similarities with the greats, he’s created his own brand of neo-classic country that reflects his own observations about life, road-living and often painful memories that have formed his honest songwriting voice in the current Country and Americana genres. Check out my favorite of the album below entitled “Loveletters and Cigarettes.”



His mainstay for tour locations is along the I-35 corridor and if you’re in the Des Moines, IA area you can catch him at The Underground 4/20.

Aly


side note: A special thanks to Jon Harris for his three year battle to get his good friend Cody Jinks to Minnesota!

First Listen: Rocket Club, “North Country”

Rocket Club family, friends, Minnesotans, residents of the North Country, fans of good music, K102 listeners, Indy Sky readers, independent music supporters — it’s here; Rocket’s Club’s much anticipated new album, North Country,is completed and ready for your ears! Our friends at K102 (KEEY 102.1 Minneapolis/St. Paul) are hosting an exclusive listening party of all twelve tracks from the new album, free, before you can buy it!

“North Country” — our summertime anthem, “I Can’t Dance” — a groovin’ party number, and “She’s The One” — an upbeat love tale and the band’s latest release to radio primed to burn up the country charts, are just the foundation of a rock solid compilation of what Rocket Club does best; great music. The band’s Chris Hawkey (vocals), Don Smithmier (vocals, keys), Brian Kroening (guitar), Luke Kramer (guitar), Joel Sayles (bass guitar), and Billy Thommes (drums) display top-caliber musicianship with heartland rock styling, weaving a welcoming portrait of North Country life. Powerful vocals and brilliant harmonies express vivid storytelling through superior songwriting and heartfelt (and sometimes perfectly witty) lyrics.

What I love most is the undercurrent of optimism you find in every Rocket Club record. There’s no mistake that’s what you’ll find in North Country. Hope, perseverance and pride drives the music — a universal message that you can’t deny is good for the ears and good for the heart.

There’s something for everyone in North Country. I love every moment of the record but personally, I can’t stop playing “Living Out Loud” — hot damn. It’s my jam! If you love what you hear from the studio, it’s only a taste of what you get from a live Rocket Club show. Come on out to the North Country CD Release event on May 3rd at The Varsity Theater to hear this live and loud. I can guarantee it’s something you won’t soon forget.

I’m proud to say, this is what the North Country sounds like.

Beth

• Preview North Country [K102]
• Pre-order North Country [Rocket Club Store]
• Purchase tickets to the North Country Release Party, 5.3.12 at the Varsity [Ticketfly] [Facebook event]
  
  

Track List:
1 — North Country
2 — She’s The One
3 — Every Silver Lining
4 — Get A Boat
5 — Take You There
6 — One Of These Days
7 — Friends Stand In Line
8 — Running Out Of Time
9 — Angry Women and Lessons Learned
10 — Living Out Loud
11 — I Can’t Dance
12 — Four Letter World

*This article is cross-posted at K102: Boots on the Ground [K102]

You Oughta Know: Seth James

Beth teased Seth James in Monday’s post about The Departed, but he really deserves his own You Oughta Know. Long time friends with Cody Canada, he was a well-known Texas singer/songwriter before the pair dreamt up The Departed as a creative outlet. 

I’ve been a sucker for the blues/bayou sound since we heard Jason Eady back in December. While Seth James has elements of that sound he’s a bit more polished and has a more playful, funky R&B influence  too that reminds be of a Springsteen/Stevie Ray Vaughan hybrid.

When The Departed made their last run through Minnesota in September, he was my favorite band member to watch, because his face was so expressive when he’d really dig into his guitar solos. At the same time he has a voice like butter, but his face certainly is not.

You can pick up his two solo albums That Kind of Man (2009) and Bad Luck and Trouble (2001) on Amazon or see him live at The Cabooze for the “Magical Misdemeanor Tour” tomorrow.

Aly

Tex-Mex Stand-Off: Randy Rogers vs Stoney LaRue

Found my Monday laugh on Stoney’s Facebook page. He seems to be having fun with the gag, but Randy as comfortable with the stunt as I do when Applebee’s waiters singing to you on your birthday.

~Aly