Stop by and have a listen!

Recommendations:

Buy “Make It Worse”? Yep. You can do that here !
See ‘em live? Yep
Buy ‘em a beer? Yep

"It was my turn for a CD. I put in some Lucinda Williams and Logan said noooooooooooooooooooo. He covered his face with his hands. Please, no, please he said. I'm begging you.
C'mon, I said, it's not county. Check out the lyrics. I tossed the CD case into his lap. He screamed and tossed it back at me like it was a shitty diaper. Just put on your headphones then, I said. I'm playing it."

That passage has to be based on a real interaction with a real teenage boy. I just wonder when did Miriam met my fourteen-year-old son?

I don't want to mislead you with the short passage from the novel. "The Flying Troutmans" isn't a music book but it is one of the most engaging heartfelt novels I've read this year. How would I describe it? Maybe "The Catcher On The Road meets Little Miss Sunshine"?

Highly recommended.

Even if Logan hates our music.

HW: I'm a big fan of T-Bone Burnett and Tonio K. Were they an influence on you and your music?

JR: Very observant of you! Yes, both are a huge part of my songwriting and production education. I was a T-Bone fan first, as a high school kid. I loved his production at the time, with the first BoDeans album, Peter Case, Tommy Keene, Leslie (Sam) Phillips, etc. Soon after I discovered his solo records of the late '80s and early '90s and totally loved that stuff, too. I first heard Tonio K when "Notes from the lost Civilization" came out, and T-Bone was the producer on that too. Then I eventually acquired all the other Tonio records...I think "Ole" (again, recorded with T-Bone) is his masterpiece, and one of my all-time favorite records. That whole suspiciously spiritual LA rock crowd of the late-80s have always been my role models....T-Bone, Sam Phillips, Peter Case, Victoria Williams, Maria McKee, Tonio K...and in that era they all worked together, and overlapped with other heros of mine like Bruce Cockburn and Buddy & Julie Miller. In many ways, I've mapped my own career on the tone and attitude that those people set back when I was a teenaged music nerd.

HW: Where does "insomniaccomplishments" come from?

JR: I like making up my own compound words, so I enjoy the huge 22-leter mass of it all. But the title of the album is also literally true. When I was finishing up the album this past Winter, I was coming off of a couple years of terrible sleep problems. My wife and I had new baby in the house who was always waking up, I was recovering from a tonsillectomy and a strange sleep-related side-effect from my pain meds, and my body clock was totally messed up. I was exhausted all day, and wide awake at night. So rather than lie in bed awake and bored all night, I'd get up and go down to my basement studio where I would finish up old song ideas, sing vocal tracks, and experiement with strange instruments and arrangements.So this particular album is literally what I was able to accomplish during my insomnia. Thankfully, this Summer my daughter began to sleep through the night, and I made some changes in my schedule that have finally allowed me to sleep!

HW: Do you have plans to tour in support of "insomniaccomplishments"?

JR: Yes...although the album is being released nationally in December, I've had pre-release copies with me on tour this Fall. I've been on the road a lot. Since September I've played in KS, AZ, NY, MA, MI, WI, MN, IL, TX, ND, and OK. All sorts of gigs...rock clubs, churches, coffeehouses, colleges, hotel lounges, house concerts. I'll be doing official CD release shows in Minneapolis and St. Paul in December, and in 2009 I've got gigs shaping up in Chicago, California, and the Pacific Northwest.

HW: I really like your version of the Finnish folk song "Kuortane". It reminds me of an acoustic Richard Thompson recording!

JR: Thanks! I love acoustic instrumental music, and I'm a big fan of guys like Richard Thompson and Bruce Cockburn. My ancestors came to the USA from Finland in 1903 (some of them came from the Finnish town of Kuortane, where the song comes from), and in the past few years I've been able to play shows over there. I've also been listening to some contemporary Finnish folk music too, like Varttina. This past Summer I got to sit in on mandolin with one of the best Finnish bluegrass bands, the Ninni Poijarvi Trio...we did Finnish folk songs as well as American country tunes by Julie Miller and Dolly Parton. It was a blast. I plan to work on learning more Scandinavian music...my wife plays accordion, and we have fun doing duet arrangements of those old Swedish and Finnish folk songs and hymns.

HW: Could you describe the weirdest gig you ever played?

JR: There are too many weird ones to name. I've played a preschool PTA hot dog picnic. I've played for residents at nursing homes. I've played a show for inmates at a maximum security prison. When I was 19 years old I traveled to former East Germany right after the Berlin Wall came down and played concerts for people who had never seen an American before. I played a show in the basement of the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. I played for 36,000 Lutheran youth in the Lousiana Superdome in New Orleans. My first real gig was when I was 17 years old, opening for folk legend Greg Brown in a hockey arena. It's been a strange career.

HW: Turn us on to a favorite band (or two) or yours that's under the radar.

JR: My two favorite bands came out of the late-80s pre-Americana movement...The Rainmakers and The Silos. Other obscure bands who I totally idolize are The Pursuit of Happiness (from Canada), Michael Hall (from Austin, TX).
HW note: Check out "Public Library” Jonathan’s disc produced by Walter Salaa-Humara of the Silos and featuring the Silos as his backing band. Highly recommended.

HW: Have you ever played Guitar Hero?

JR: I played Rock Band once, and I was terrible at the guitar parts. The drumming was okay, and I sang "Peace of Mind" by Boston and scored a 93! I was very proud of myself.

HW: Is spiritual power-pop a genre? Thanks for the music whatever you call it!

JR: I'm not sure if it's a musical genre, but there are a few folks (who we discussed in the first question) who've done great work exploring those topics. These days there's a new cohort of folks who write that way...people like David Bazan, Sufjan Stevens, etc. But I'm forever indebted to those bands from the '80s who I discovered in high school.

Disclosure: Jonathan sent HickoryWind unsolicited copies of “The Best Of Jonathan Rundman” and “Public Library” last year. I’ve enjoyed those two discs so much that I couldn’t in good faith request a review copy of the new disc. I sent a check and received my copy with a post-it note that read “Thanks Hal! You’re the first to purchase this CD-JR”

Money well spent!

My far and away pick for best of 2008 is going to be the Justin Townes Earle album. Have you heard it yet? Do me a favor and just buy the track "Lone Pine Hill". If you don't dig it then I'll reinburse you the .99 :) I'm telling you, the album is 100% solid through-and-through.

Stacy recommends this album too, but to be honest, when I saw him live at the AMA Awards this past September I wasn't all that impressed. He must be a better album artist than live. With these two very strong endorsements, however, I'd better check him out!

Winter's Fall is a blending of My Morning Jacket's frightening-Kentucky-backwoods sound with Uncle Tupelo's straight-up alt-country-rock, but with just a dash of Neil Young thrown in for good measure. These guys can rock you, zone you out, and pull you right back in.

Lead singer Peter Stanley's voice is a high-pitched, nasal grit and very reminiscent of the "strange country" sound from bands like My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses. However, the band's instrumentation and arrangements are less lush and "indie-rock-ish." They tend towards a grittier, less melodramatic sound, much more reminiscent of Uncle Tupelo's whiskey-fueled ass-kicking grunge of "Still Feel Gone." There are heavily distorted electric guitars, driving bass & drums, airy electric pianos, and lots of pedal steel playing "spooky bird call" fills. Over all their instrumentation is very tasteful and suitable to their song material, which trends towards the moody and melancholy.

These aren't typical country songs of heart-ache and remorse, and they aren't "get drunk and laid" rock n' roll songs either. They're introspective, other-worldly, and yet so familiar. There is sadness, blame, and doubt. "Hillside" is a divorce song -- "I'll be giving you back your address, and you can give back my name," but it's so high energy and rocking you wouldn't notice. Let the intense song arrangements catch your ear first, and then notice the incredibly literate lyrics.

Their imagery is dark and dreamlike. We see glimpses of angels and broken houses, flickers of candlelight at night. "With my broken body fading, I passed out for the evening, and like an alarm ringing I dreamt of angels singing... they were muddy & white." (from "Muddy & White") "Don't say the night will be discovered by candlelight in the cupboard, by closing eyes, and acting stubborn... I have lost what never was safe." (from "Unusual Ways")

Winter's Fall epitomize the new "high lonesome" sound -- instead of being away and alone on a mountain in a wilderness (the old Bluegrass mystique), they're alone in a wilderness outside of a sprawling metropolis, on the edge of civilization, where things get real... and strange. It's audible Faulkner for the 21st century.

Over all I consider this album the "missing link" between the classic alt country bands of the 90s and early 2000s and the new "strange lonesome" sound of Indie Rock bands like My Morning Jacket and Fleet Foxes.

I recommend skipping their initial EP titled "Muddy & White" but absolutely recommend picking up the album (DRM-free!) from Amazon MP3, CD Baby, or iTunes. The EP had some early-band production problems that have completely disappeared in this first album.

The whole damn album is great, but the stand-out songs are as follows: "Hillside" for an up-tempo Uncle Tupelo rocker, "Paper Chains" for a Neil Young-esque ballad, and "These Ivory Days" for a indie-rock My Morning Jacket tune. "Blame", "Rain", and "Muddy & White" also disproportionately kick my ass.

(My only complaint about the whole album is that the trumpet on "Muddy & White" and "Lonely You" should be a fiddle... or maybe a steel guitar. The trumpet doesn't sound bad, it just seems out of place.)

Featured musicians (songs will be released on iTunes Nov. 25) will include Elvis Costello, Willie Nelson, John Legend, and Feist. And Toby Keith, but I choose to ignore that. And maybe THAT, my friends, is the greatest gift of all.

Here's a sample of an original ditty from Stephen Colbert (with a little help from the guy from Fountains of Wayne).

Jackson Browne kept his word, producing Zevon’s stunning 1976 major label debut “Warren Zevon”. Reviews were enthusiastic and Linda Ronstadt championed Zevon and his songs, eventually covering four tracks from the disc: “Poor Poor Pitiful Me”, “Mohammed’s Radio”, “Hasten Down the Wind” and “Carmelita”. Despite the critical acclaim “Warren Zevon” was generally ignored by the vinyl-buying public selling only about 80,000 copies. The disc was hard to pigeon-hole and Zevon, supported on the disc by Lindsey Buckingham, Stevie Nicks, Jackson Browne and Glen Frey was tagged as a “sensitive Southern California singer-songwriter” (although Zevon effectively destroyed that label with his follow-up disc “Excitable Boy”). Lyrically, if not musically, Zevon was often more Velvet Underground than Eagles when he sang "meet my man", “all strung out on heroin", “no more methadone”,“waking up in the morning with shaking hands” and “she asked me if I’d beat her”.

“Warren Zevon-Collector’s Edition” (Rhino Records) is a two disc set which includes the original eleven track masterpiece remastered and a second disc of fifteen demos/alternate versions including one live track from a 1976 radio broadcast. Several of the demos are stripped down piano only versions that sound more like a long lost solo concert recordings than raw demos. The other alternate versions with a full band offer interesting if often only slightly different versions of every track from "Warren Zevon" including a brief Dylan impersonation on “Mohammed’s Radio (Take 2)”. The second disc is a tasty treat for Zevon fans if not required listening but the remastered first disc is essential listening for both the uninitiated and fans revisiting the early career of Warren Zevon.

When was the last time you dusted off the 1976 best-sellers “Boston” or “Frampton Comes Alive”? If you didn't or couldn't buy this disc the first time around, thirty-two years later Rhino Records is giving us another chance to get it right.

A gentle reminder:

The elections over but you can still vote. Sign the Warren Zevon - Rock And Roll Hall of Fame Induction Petition
here.

"Enjoy every sandwich!"

What are you jamming to on the way to the polls?

Favorites of the campaign (not necessarily endorsed by the performers) include Brooks & Dunn's "Only in America," Queen's "We Will Rock You," and "Start Me Up" by the Rolling Stones.

One of the tippy-top favorites, though, is "Here I Go Again" by Whitesnake, which the report says is played several times a day.

Why?

Because, according to Brian Rogers, 30, a McCain campaign spokesman, "Here I Go Again" is "one of the most inspiring things ever written."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, national anthem.

Here's the song, and, um, inspiring video, if you need a refresher.

That said, please devote the energy you might have put into snagging some new music this week into voting instead. It's easy, and it's important. I ain't going to tell you who to vote for, but I am going to tell you that if you don't vote, you're kind of a choad. Your vote makes a difference, no matter what anyone tells you, and our country doesn't work without your participation. So go vote, and then swing by the record store on your way home and pick up something old you've been wanting as a reward (and, uh, to stimulate the economy? Yeah.).

If you need some music to get you in the mood, you could try "Lu in 08," a four-song digital-only live EP released this week by Miss Lucinda Williams. It's three covers of various protest songs (not necessarily red or blue) and one original, well worth a listen. Stream it free or buy it here. Her cover of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth," is kind of skip-able, but Thievery Corporation/Flaming Lips' "Marching the Hate Machines" is divine. And the original, "Bone of Contention," is the Lucinda snarl put to very, very good use. Especially if the person in front of you on the way to your polling place is driving like an asshole.

"Roots Music" -- each generation's redefining of its parent's and grand-parent's stories through songs, tunes, and words -- will be here forever. There will always be people looking backwards to look forwards, writing themselves into history. Whether it's classic Country, Rock N' Roll, or looking deeper to Blues, Folk, and beyond, modern music will never emerge from a vacuum. Artists always become great by standing on the shoulders of giants and looking just a bit farther than anyone has before.

There have been rumblings lately about "alt country being dead." Well, I've got two things to say about that -- first, there are still some great artists out there putting out amazing music in the "alt country" vein (whatever that is). Star Anna and The Weight are just a couple that have had great album releases this year. (And don't get me started on Hayes Carll... what a damn great album!)

Secondly, and most importantly... each type of music has its ebbs and flows. The ideas, the themes, and the tunes can flow from one genre into the next. Look back to the Folk Scare of the Sixties into the Folk Revival of the 70s, the CowPunk of the 80s to the Alt Country of the 90s to the Americana of the 2000s. The instrumentation gets tweaked, the vocabulary may change, but the soul remains. Maybe "alt country" is winding down, but the "son of alt country" (whatever that is) is winding up.

Right now I'm listening to a lot of new bands that embody the next wave of Roots Music. They don't have much steel guitar (unfortunately), but they have lots of fiddles, banjos, acoustic guitars, mandolins, and songs, melodies, and lyrical themes that stretch back to the Golden Age of Country way back to the Ancient Tones of the British Isles. They feel like today, and they remind us of yesterday. They're carrying the torch forward, and I'll be writing about them for the next several weeks... we'll be writing about them for the next several years.

Hickory Wind has been here for the past six years, exploring the roots of modern music and modern music itself. We'll be here for a long while, and I want y'all along for the ride.

Thanks for reading, commenting, and listening to roots music. To the authors of Hickory Wind -- Stacy, Sean, Hal, Amanda, Brendan, Jim, and James -- thanks for all the hard work you do and for sticking with me for so long! There wouldn't be a Hickory Wind without you. (To Justin and Brian, thanks for helping out as long as you could. We'll always leave a light on for you!)

Thanks so much, everyone! Happy Birthday, Hickory Wind!