Random news: Ransom Pride Trailer, Todd Snider Book, Chris Knight Pre-Order, etc...

Just some random tidbits here:

• Last Rites of Ransom Pride (outdated and non-representative of the real movie) trailer is now online and viewable, this is the movie that stars Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, and script by Ray Wylie Hubbard (more info on the site) EDIT: According to Judy Hubbard this is not the trailer for the movie, rather a scene that was shot last year to drum up support for the movie. The real movie is set to debut at this year's Toronto Film Festival in September. More info here. Here's to hoping an official trailer comes out soon.

• Todd Snider divulged in a recent interview with Paste that he is working on a book based on his infamous stories. Said he gave the writer Dennis Cook a copy of the Moondawg's Tavern boot, a few phone numbers, and told him to find the "real story". Book is going to be called "Almost Everything I Say Is True"

• Chris Knight announced The Trailer Tapes II will be released this September, but....BUT!...you can pre-order now and get an immediate download & get the physical CD in the mail (some have already gotten their's, and early reviews are that this thing is as good as the first Trailer Tapes)

• Good news for you Backsliders fans out there. Chip Robinson (lead singer of The Backsliders) has a new one coming out in November on Red River Records called Mylow, which can also be pre-ordered and they will feature custom packaging, signature, and early shipment

• Speaking of, Red River Records is run by Kasey Anderson, who has announced an EP of four additional songs taken from the session for his Way Out West album released earlier this year. EP will be available on August 25th, and pre-orders get access to an exclusive bonus track

Tim Easton - The Berkely Cafe - Raleigh, NC 5/12/09

Some of you may already be familiar with Tim Easton. Some of you like me may have been introduced to Easton with the excellent Easton Stagger Phillips album from last year, or maybe his new album Porcupine (really great album BTW). For those who don't know Tim Easton at all, let me try to describe what to expect. To me he reminds me a lot of Joe Ely....that country soul with rock and roll swagger.

If you like bluesy riffs, great guitar playing, music that shifts effortlessly from straight rockin' out (such as Burgundy Red) to introspective folk (such as the excellent Stones Throw Away), excellent finger picking, crying in your beer, and lyrics that have a knack for sticking to your brain....all rooted soundly in traditional folk, country, & blues....chances are high you may like this. Damn, that description sounds like it could be for Blue Mountain, The Bottle Rockets, or possibly DBT....certainly fans of those bands would find something to enjoy with Tim Easton. He's a little more folk oriented than those bands though. I'm thinking Scott Miller fans may want to give this a listen too.

Sound on this is a little rough at first with the guitar way up in the mix, luckily that is quickly fixed and until the unplugged songs at the end you got some great sound on this one....like a B+ overall. Standout tracks are the aforementioned Stones Throw Away, the rocking Porcupine, Black Dog, Not Today, Carry Me, All The Pretty Girls Leave Town, Festival Song....well alot of these songs are making me want to explore Tim's back catalog. Highlight for me though is the reworking of Doc Watson's "Southbound" into the rollicking twangfest "Northbound", and then the cover of "Southbound" later in the set played in the same fashion.

MP3 @ VBR (High Quality)

Tim Easton - The Berkely Cafe

The Fox Hunt - We Know This Town/Crackshot (Video)

Another band I'll be talking about later but you folks can enjoy now

Sons Of Bill - Broken Bottles (Video)

Been thoroughly enjoying the new Sons Of Bill album One Town Away. More on that later, right now you can enjoy this song off of that album. Features the killer line "Hank Williams might have been a lovesick drinker, but being a lovesick drunk don't make you hank"

From The Archives: Murder Ballads & Song's About Killin'

Just another request. This was the first comp I ever made for the site, way back in April & May of 2007.
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Per request, here is a collection of murder ballads and other songs about killin'. I was surprised at how many I actually found in my collection, but I narrowed the scope down to more traditional sounding songs which meant I had to cut alot of good stuff like Steve Earle's "Billy Austin" & "The Devil's Right Hand", DBT's "Nine Bullets", "Decoration Day", & "Cottonseed", Old 97's "The Other Shoe", Johnny Cash's "Cocaine Blues" & "Sound of Laughter", Hendrix's "Hey Joe".....lots of good stuff, but I think what I came up with has a much more consistent flow.
I'm gonna give a brief description of each song Harry Smith style, so here goes:

1. Knoxville Girl by The Louvin Brothers
'Willy' (he seems to be the protagonist in alot of these songs) beats his 'Knoxville girl' to death with a stick then drags her by her hair and throws her into the Tennessee river.

2. Pretty Polly by Ralph Stanley & Patty Loveless
This is my favorite version of this song. 'Willy' lures 'Pretty Polly' into the woods and stabs her in the heart because she won't marry him, he then burys her in the grave he dug "the biggest part of last night".

3. Little Sadie by Doc Watson
You may know the more familiar "Cocaine Blues", this is the song it is derived from. Man kills 'Little Sadie' with a .44, he is then hunted down, arrested, and tried.

4. Little Glass of Wine by The Stanley Brothers
'Willy' wants to marry 'Molly', but she wants to wait a year. He then finds her dancing with another man and poisons her and himself.

5. Omie Wise by Doc Watson
True story of the murder of Naomi Wise by John Lewis in North Carolina circa 1808. John Lewis drowns Omie Wise whose body is found days later by 2 fisherman.

6. Pretty Daughter by The Bad Livers
A man who doesn't want his daughter to marry and leave him alone finds her in the woods with 'a boy from town' and kills him with a pick-axe.

7. Delia's Gone by Johnny Cash
An old traditional song that Johnny Cash brought to the mainstream. A man ties Delia to a chair in her parlor and shoots her for being low down and triflin'.

8. The Lawson Family Murder by Doc Watson
Probably the most twisted song in this collection. Charlie Lawson kills his wife and 6 children then shoots himself in the heart on a Christmas evening.

9. Caleb Meyer by Gillian Welch
My favorite song off this collection. Caleb Meyer attempts to rape Nellie Cane whose husband has went to town. He pins her down but she reaches the neck of the whiskey bottle he threw down and uses it to slit his throat and kill him.

10. Westfall by Okkervil River
This one is a contemporary murder ballad. Tells the story of a young man who goes over to his friend Colin Kincaid's house in Westfall where they meet up with 2 girls from Kenwood Christian and he ends up murdering one of them.

11. Country Death Song by Violent Femmes
A man kills his youngest daughter by throwing her in the well then hangs himself in the barn.

12. Polly Vaughn by The Dillards
A hunter accidentally shoots his true love mistaking her for a swan in the darkness.

13. Tom Dooley by Doc Watson
Probably the most famous murder ballad. Tom Dooley kills Laura Foster then burys her in a shallow grave on the hillside. Based on the real life murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dula.

14. John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man by Anita Carter
This is an old Carter Family song. John Hardy kills a man on the West Virginia line, he is caught and hanged.

15. Henry Lee by Dick Justice
A woman kills Henry Lee with a pen knife and hides his body in a well because he loves another more than her.

16. Philadelphia Lawyer by Maddox Brothers & Rose
A cowboy kills the 'Philadelphia Lawyer' who lured his 'Hollywood Maid' away from him.

17. The Fate of Dewey Lee by The Carter Family
True story of the murder of Dewey Lee in Virginia circa 1931 who was killed by Joe Jenkins during a night of drinking for an unknown reason.

18. Otto Wood the Bandit by Doc Watson
Otto Wood gets in an argument with a pawnshop clerk and shoots him dead. He is then arrested, escapes, shot and arrested again, escapes and finally killed by two sheriffs in a southern town.

19. Stagger Lee by Taj Mahal
An old traditional blues song. Stagger Lee kills Billy during a game of craps.

20. Banks of the Ohio by Doc Watson, Earl Scruggs, Ricky Skaggs & Allison Krauss
An old traditional song, some people think this is a retelling of the same murder sung about in "Pretty Polly". A man proposes marriage to a young woman on the banks of the ohio river, when she refuses he drowns her.

21. Frankie and Johnny by Merle Haggard
An old Jimmie Rodgers tune, but I like this Haggard version off his Rodgers tribute album. Frankie shoots Johnny 3 times with a .44 when she finds him making love to Nelly Bly.

22. Turn It On, Turn It On, Turn It On by Tom T. Hall
Johnny goes on a shooting spree in 1944 killing all the people who called him a coward for not being able to enlist during WWII.

23. Cedartown Georgia by Waylon Jennings
A man kills his wife with a .22 when he catches her cheating on him.

24. Blue Rock Montana by Willie Nelson
A man kills his wife and the man she was cheating on him with in a tavern in Blue Rock Montana.

Murder Ballads & Songs About Killin'

Murder Ballads Alt Link

From The Archives: Jerry Jeff Walker & Joe Ely - Live At Antone's 1983

Just filling requests here, and trying to take care of all my dead links. If you haven't heard the new Flatlanders album Hills & Valleys, you should check that out too.

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Here's some honky tonk for ya. You can almost smell the beer while listening to this one. This thing is cool. Mostly a Jerry Jeff affair but what Joe lacks in quantity, he more than makes up for with quality. The last few tracks feature a few familiar names coming up on stage singing as well.

MP3 @ 192
Jerry Jeff & Joe Ely - Live At Antones

Jerry Jeff & Joe - Antone's Alt Link

From The Archives: Buddy Miller - Merlefest 5-1-05

Got a request for this, so thought I would throw it up real quick. Go out and get Buddy & Julie's latest "Written in Chalk" if you haven't already.

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Got this one with the artwork and all (love it when that happens). This is a nice little set, although the drums are a little heavy in the mix at the beginning. Really it's hard to go wrong with Buddy Miller though, and on this set he's got a full band behind him so some of it gets a little more rockin' than usual. Buddy is a highly underrated artist in a sea of underrated artists. Cool version of "That's How I Got To Memphis" on here too.

MP3
Buddy Miller - Merlefest 5/1/05

Buddy Miller - Merlefest Alt Link

Guest Post: Waffles The Shape of Texas: A High Noon Saloon Compilation

If you guys have been keeping up, you know that I recently did a guest post of a covers compilation over at High Noon Saloon. Well I asked Dangerbird if he would like to return the favor and he did so with a covers comp of his own!

Lots of not just songs but artists that were new to me. Favorite discovery off this is Death Cab For Cutie doing Fortunate Son. I never have checked out Death Cab For Cutie, because....well I thought the name was horrible (I know, lame coming from someone who loves bands named Wrinkle Neck Mules & Drive By Truckers), and I just assumed they were some kind of Fall Out Boy band (though I'm not sure I know what they sound like either). Also loving this Nirvana song on here.....never heard it before.

Looking at the cover Dangerbird made for this, makes me wonder where one might find a waffle iron shaped like Texas.....cause that is fucking sweet!

Here is Dangerbird's writeup:

Following on from the success of the first Smothered, Covered & Peppered compilation, A Truer Sound offered me the opportunity to respond with a compilation of my own. I loved Smothered... so much I thought I'd stick with the theme. Now, waffles aren't as common in Australia as they are in the States - indeed late night takeaway is restricted to but a few isolated cafes in the cities - but I do love me a good cover.

I too stuck with predominantly newer artists doing classic tracks from a bygone era, with a few notable exceptions. For example, Ramblin' Jack Elliott is by no means a 'newer' artist, though he is making a bit of a comeback after a half-decade on the folk circuit.

Followers of High Noon Saloon may recognise some of these tracks from previous mixtapes (Calexico's version of 'Tulsa Telephone Book', Hank III's 'Atlantic City'). I make no apologies for including them again, as it's tracks like these that have informed High Noon's direction.

Raise a glass!

Tracklisting:
1. Wagons - I've Never Been To Spain (Orig. by Hoyt Axton. Made famous by Elvis Presley)
2. Mike Noga & The Gentlemen of Fortune - Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You (Orig. by Bob Dylan)
3. Todd Snider - Maybe You Heard (Orig. by Kris Kristofferson)
4. Calexico - Tulsa Telephone Book (Orig. by Tom T. Hall)
5. Whiskey Folk Ramblers - Ramblin' Man (Orig. by Luke the Drifter, a.k.a. Hank Williams)
6. Wilco & Feist - The Jolly Banker (Orig. by Woody Guthrie)
7. Naama Hillman - Ring of Fire (Orig. by Johnny Cash)
8. Vetiver - Standin' (Orig. by Townes Van Zandt)
9. Dixie Chicks with Ricky Skaggs - Walk Softly on this Heart of Mine (Orig. by Bill Monroe)
10. Ramblin' Jack Elliott with Lucinda Williams - Careless Darling (Orig. by Ernest Tubb)
11. Old Crow Medicine Show - Union Maid (Orig. by The Almanac Singers)
12. Hank III - Atlantic City (Orig. by Bruce Springsteen)
13. Steve Earle & The V-Roys - In The Jailhouse Now (Orig. by Jimmie Rodgers)
14. Bruce Springsteen - I Ain't Got No Home (Orig. by Woody Guthrie)
15. Cowboy Junkies - I'm So Lonely I Could Cry (Orig. by Hank Williams)
16. Paul Kelly - Pastures of Plenty (Orig, by Woody Guthrie)
17. Michael Vermillon - Waiting Around to Die (Orig. by Townes Van Zandt)
18. Death Cab For Cutie with Sean Nelson - Fortunate Son (Orig. by Creedence Clearwater Revival)
19. Nirvana - Ain't It A Shame (Orig. by Leadbelly)
20. Jason & The Nashville Scorchers - Hello Walls (Orig. by Faron Young)
21. Scott H. Biram - Muleskinner Blues (Orig. by Jimmie Rodgers)
22. Ground Components - Jackson (Orig. by Johnny Cash & June Carter)
23. Hater - Blistered (Orig. by Billy Edd Wheeler)
24. Blitzkid - I Walk the Line (Orig. by Johnny Cash)
25. Uncle Tupelo - Sin City (Orig. by Gram Parsons)

Waffles The Shape of Texas

Something a little different....LCPL Stephen Davis

This is a hometown boy (my old hometown), and friend of friends (the ones who pointed this vid out to me) Lance Corporal Stephen Davis of the USMC currently serving in Iraq. Song has sort of a Chris Knight vibe to it, and I'm sure some of you can appreciate it. Consider it a late 4th and Fathers Day post

Random news....No Depression archives, Wrinkle Neck Mules, Brian Henneman comments

Big news for alt-country (whatever that is) fans, and music lovers in general today as No Depression has put all of it's past articles, reviews, letters, pretty much the whole of the magazine minus ads, online today in the No Depression Archives. I bet I spent 3 hours this afternoon looking through old articles (some really interesting V-Roys articles in there for Scott Miller fans). Can't wait to dig in some more.

In other news, A Truer Sound favorites Wrinkle Neck Mules have announced their new album titled Let The Lead Fly will be released on Sept. 22nd on Lower 40 Records. Read about it here

And finally, here is a forum post (in which someone commented he was going to have a shit fit) from Brian Henneman regarding the Bottle Rockets demos I posted over the weekend

No shit fit here.
Go git it.
I have no idea what they sound like, but, if I did it, it's 'cause I wanted somebody to hear it.
That ain't stealin' it's sharin', 'cause none of this was ever for sale, or, intended for sale...
Brian

The Bottle Rockets - Dust and Wrath Demos (1990)

The final in the Bottle Rockets Demo Trilogy. This one is from 1990 and features a few songs that will be familiar to B-Rox fans. The majority of these however however have never been released officially. Shame too cause there are some good songs on here.

As I said earlier, The Bottle Rockets have a new album entitled Lean Forward due out early next month (Aug. 11th to be exact). And if you are interested at all in reading about the history of Henneman and The Bottle Rockets, I found the wikipedia article to be the best (most of it was copied verbatim from factorybelt.net)

Happy 4th y'all

MP3 @ 192

Bottle Rockets - Dust and Wrath Demos

The Bottle Rockets - Brian Henneman Demos (1991)

The second Bottle Rockets demo of the trilogy I will be posting. Kind of a followup to the Uncle Tupelo demo trilogy. This one is Brian Henneman backed by Jay and Jeff from Uncle Tupelo. Really cool banjo version of "Wave That Flag" on here with what I'm assuming to be Jay Farrar on the banjo.

MP3 @ 192

Bottle Rockets - Brian Henneman Demos

The Bottle Rockets - Brooklyn Side Demos

You didn't know it, but you're smack dab in the middle of a 4th of July post extravaganza here at A Truer Sound. And well, what's else says 4th of July better than bottle rockets? Unfortunately these bottle rockets here won't blow your thumbs off, only rock your socks off. This is a demo that I am not really sure where I even got. I can't find any info on it but it's a great demo of one the seminal Alt Country albums The Brooklyn Side. The demos here are a more subdued affair than the rocking Brooklyn Side, but very very cool, and quite a few unreleased songs. Really love the little intros to the songs too....such as the intro to I'll Be Comin' Around where Henneman explains the song is the result of listening to too much fleetwood mac while thinking about his friends girlfriend. Really love the last song on this thing "Gravity" as well. Don't know why it has never made it to an official album.

The Bottle Rockets have a new album titled Lean Forward due out Aug. 11th by the way, and have just filmed a live DVD due out sometime soon. Read about it here

MP3 @ 192

Bottle Rockets - Brooklyn Side Demos

Corb Lund DVD Preview

Due out this month sometime according to the information. Visit his website

Stream the whole show here (coutesy toomuchcountry)

Del McCoury Band - WFPK Studios 10/5/01

Let's continue with the bluegrass theme here, this one is ABSOLUTELY my favorite recorded anything of Del McCoury. Anytime I need a Del fix....I always turn to this one before any of his studio albums or official releases. Perfect sound on this, perfect mix, the band is playing extra fierce, just an all around great set captured on the radio. And given that I've already said this is my favorite Del recording, obviously I think the version of 1952 Vincent Black Lightning on here is THE best version of the song. Some great insights on Del and the Boys recording method, cover choices, and the state of bluegrass during the interview as well. Bluegrass fans, don't miss out on this one (that includes you Mr. guy in the OCMS shirt :-P)

MP3

Del McCoury - WFPK Studios

Doc & Merle Watson - Freedom Park - Charlotte, NC 7/4/80

Around here 4th of July means 3 things...Cookouts, Fireworks, and Bluegrass. So to celebrate, here is an old Doc Watson show with his late son Merle recorded on Independence Day 29 years ago. So break out the watermelon and sparklers, kick back and enjoy this great show by two of the greatest pickers of all time. This set also included one of my favorite songs of all time....The Cuckoo (she never....says cuckoo.....till the 4th day....of July....)

MP3 @ 192

Doc & Merle Watson - Freedom Park