Well, look at that– I just posted something. Hope I didn’t mispell anything.

Mountain top removal coal mining has been a simmering issue in the Appalachian Mountains for some time now, but over the past few months, musicians from the area and across the country have banded together to fight it with the Mountains’ greatest export—not coal, music.

Coal mining has always been an incendiary subject in the Appalachians. Hell, the largest armed insurgence since the Civil War was fought over miners’ rights in 1921 at Blair Mountain. A staggering 15,000 coal miners took up arms to battle hired thugs, goons, government agents, and even the US Army Air Corps’ bomber planes. It’s an understatement to say coal mining always has and always will be a hot button issue. But the issue today isn’t whether coal mining should be eliminated entirely, but merely the cessation mountain top removal.

In case you’re not familiar with it, mountain top removal goes like this: one of several large energy companies, owned and run by outsiders, cram a mountain top full of explosives and then blow the living hell out of it. Then they take bulldozers and push the rubble into giant sorting machines the pick out the coal. To date over 1.2 million acres and 500 mountains have been flattened.

The process wreaks havoc on the environment. For one thing, a mountain isn’t there anymore, and that alone is a big fucking deal, but the blasting also contaminates rivers and streams, which are depended on for miles, at the source, and sends toxic ash and dust over a staggeringly large area. Contaminating the water has a trickle down effect that basically screws all the animals, vegetation, and people in the region. The dust and ash is so thick and dangerous that schools have shut down due to inches of deadly residue, and houses in the area are rendered worthless, leaving families homeless.

When the topic of environmental repercussions of coal mining is brought up, most people’s first response is, what about the jobs? True, people need to work, and as humans, our survival instinct can be short sighted, looking only to the next paycheck to feed our families. There is an argument to be made that communities would die without the mines they have grown so dependent on (largely thanks to the billionaire outsider-run coal companies and wealthy politicians creating a system where they have no other choice or options for subsistence). However, that point is moot when it comes to mountain top removal, because by simply blowing up the whole mountain and bulldozing the remnants, big coal is employing only a fraction of the number of people they would in a traditional mine. That’s right, they’re screwing the earth and the workers.

The coal companies will try to tell you that their “reclamation process” puts things back good as new, but you don’t have to be a geologist to know that a pile of gravel covered with non-indigenous grass and saplings isn’t the same thing as a mountain that was there for millions of years. It’s more like a lumpy golf course.

It takes a lot to fight back against some the richest, most powerful, and politically corrupt energy companies, but if one thing can do it, it’s music. Kentuckians Yim Yames (that’s Jim James from My Morning Jacket) Ben Sollee, and Daniel Martin Moore, released their album Dear Companion earlier this year, and just announced a string of new tour dates. Proceeds from the album and shows will go to fight mountain top removal.

You can pick up a track off their album here or watch the video below.

Appalachian Voices Tour Dates

7/22         Lexington, KY                          Lexington Opera House

7/23         Knoxville, TN                           The Bijou Theater

7/25         Charleston, WV                       Mountain Stage

7/26         Marlinton, WV                          Pocahontas Opera House

7/27        Charlottesville, VA                    Jefferson Theater

7/29         Woodstock, NY                        Bearsville Theater

7/30         New York, NY                          Music Hall Of Williamsburg

7/31         Newport, RI                             Newport Folk Fest (Yim Yames Solo Performance)

8/01         Newport, RI                             Newport Folk Fest (Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore Performance)

Additionally, the compilation Still Moving Mountains features the Del McCoury Band, Kathy Mattea, Everett Lilly, and a whole bunch of others. The proceeds from this album go to benefit a community kitchen that feeds activists and families in the communities that are fighting to end mountain top removal.

Another great compilation, Coal Country Music features Justin Townes Earle, Tom T. Hall, John Prine, Gillian Welch, and more amazing musicians than I have time to list. All the tracks were donated and the proceeds go to supports Alliance for Appalachia. The soundtrack is a companion piece to a great documentary, which will tell you everything you need to know about mountain top removal.

Now go get involved and get yourself some great music that fights for a good cause.

The official video for DBT’s This Fucking Job is finally here. The video is exactly what you would hope for this song, and ends in true Trucker fashion. SPOILER ALERT: Someone dies.

If you want to read more about the song or the album, check out of of these other 87 posts I’ve done about it.

Elizabeth Cook’s dad played upright bass in a prison band while serving time in the federal pen for running moonshine, and her mom was a mandolin player from the mountains of West Virginia.

I’m in. 100% No matter what.

Combine that pedigree with production by Don Was and appearances from musicians like Buddy Miller, Dwight Yoakam, and Rodney Crowell, and you’ve got a hell of an equation working itself out. On her fifth album, Welder, Cook flirts between classic country, hillbilly, rock, and even contemporary country, spanning subjects of life and death, pain and pleasure, and, of course, getting it on.

“Yes to Booty” should be playing the radio every hour, but something tells me a song I’ve dubbed 2010’s official anthem for whiskey dick isn’t going to get a lot of plays on country radio. Although, the song is such a rollicking good time, I’m sure it will coax thousands of unwitting, drunk guys to pump their first and hoot along with lyrics foretelling their inevitable disappointment at home after the show.

“Girlfriend Tonight” sounds like it came straight out of sexy time machine. I want to dance too close to this song at a run down roadhouse in 1977 while suavely sucking on a bottle of Miller High Life. And by “dance too close,” I mean I want to dry hump the song up against the wall in the corner while the surly bar maid mutters, “God damn Grumbine. The minute I saw him walk in here with that song, I knew he was gonna end up dry humpin’ it in the corner, spillin’ all the damn ketchup and making a fucking mess of the wait station. Every fuckin’ Tuesday night, Grumbine. Jesus Christ.”

But this is true country music, so it’s not all just a good time. “Heroin Addict Sister” echoes with such a haunting sincerity that you pray it’s not a true story, but you can’t help but fear it is. Saddle that with “Mama’s Funeral”, and you’re left with an almost discouragingly optimistic realization that life can be more painful than death.

At times Welder may sound a bit too polished to fall under the label of “alt-country,” if anyone uses that term anymore, but it’s also too damn real, honest, and complex to dare be associated with any of that generic horse shit pop being shoveled out of music row. It’s just good music, and if you’re that hung up on categorizing your music based on pre-conceived labels, you’ve got bigger problems than figuring out what to call this album.

Just go get it, and if you’re one of those OCD types that has to categorize everything by antiquated record store and radio labels, take a hand full of Xanex, before you try to figure out which row in your CD rack to put it on, and maybe go get some therapy. You really shouldn’t let those old daddy issues affect your love for good music.

Jason Sievers is a Boise based artist who makes amazing music videos. The stuff he does is really difficult and time consuming, and he somehow manages to make awe-inspiring visuals that beautifully support the music without distracting you or taking away from the song. His rhythmic use of stop-motion makes the surreal organic, which should be an oxymoron, but in this case, it’s not.

Jason’s videos seamlessly compliment the music like coffee and cigarettes, fried steak and gravy, or what I imagine Jack and Coke was like back in the olden days when they called it Coke for a reason.

For the most part, multimedia art can be a double-edged sword that I’d generally rather stab in my eye socket than watch. Whenever I walk into a museum and see TV monitors set up, I say to myself, “Oh great, more video of starving African babies shot with a red filter, flash cut together with pictures of fat, American kids, set to carnival noises. Well, that should fix things,” but I would gladly walk around juggling a little paper plate full of cheese cubes and a plastic cup with two ounces of wine in it while dodging douchebags mindlessly regurgitating words they learned in college, just to see Jason’s work set up in an exhibit he designed. However, I have a feeling his exhibit would be much cooler than that and not attract the type of people that piss me off.

I’ve watched this video for Boy Eats Drum Machine’s Hoop +Wire about a dozen times today already, and now I can’t get the song out of my head, in a good way.

Jason made this one for The Lights using clip art and old rubdown letters. Seriously.

Wake was the first video from Jason I saw that got me into his stuff and Finn Riggins. You can see more of Jason’s work here, and here are links for Boy Eats Drum Machine, The Lights, and Finn Riggins.

The Wig He Made Her Wear may well be the quintessential Patterson Hood song. Musically, it’s a bit different than most of his stuff, but the story and the way he tells it sums who Patterson is as a writer perfectly. It’s modern day Southern Gothic at its best.

It’s the kind of song that makes me want to run up to people on the street, grab them by the shoulders and shake them so furiously it causes a reverse seizure, and then put a wooden spoon on their tongue and gently stroke their hair as I explain to them how amazing the track is.

But as usual, the lyrics themselves say far more than I could, so here they are:

It was as open and shut as anything I have seen

He was a pillar of town his reputation was clean

It was right before Easter in the first week of spring

He didn’t show up for service that Wednesday night

The congregation knew something weren’t right

Blood on the bed when they opened the door

The preacher was dead on the bedroom floor

And it was them high-heeled shoes and that wig he made her wear

Everyone knew there had to be some outside thing that made this happen

Because they seemed like the perfect family

He’d been shot in the back, a day before he was found

His wife and three kids were nowhere around

An Amber Alert was issued in town

Everyone was shocked at the scene of the crime

She’d taken the kids across two state lines

Found her in Orange Beach with the kids in the car

Sent back to Selmer to await her trial for first-degree murder

Was she crazy or just plain old mean to have gone and done it?

She said she heard the bang and was afraid he’d be mad and made a run for it

Said, they were having a fight and the gun was a bluff

She didn’t pull the trigger it just went off

Said that he berated her about everything

Make her do things that made her feel so ashamed

Nobody at church would ever suspect

Made her dress up slutty before they had sex

In the courtroom that day there was an audible gasp

What they put up on display the locals couldn’t quite grasp

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom that day

When the defense pulled out and displayed

Them high-heeled shoes and that wig he made her wear

Reduced her charge to voluntary manslaughter

And I ain’t judging either way but she’s already out of jail

And if for some inexcusable reason, you still don’t have the album, get it here, otherwise I’m gonna come shake you like a drunken, abusive, asshole father who just found out you got kicked off the football team for sucking off the quarterback.

This is The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band’s new video. And yes, three people do count as a “big damn band” if they sound like this.

If you want to make things interesting when you fill out your census report this year, list everybody in this video as a resident of your household and write a brief description of what they look like as their occupation. It’ll be all the better if you have a one bedroom apartment. I’m pretty sure they’ll build a bus stop and a community center right in front of your building the next day.

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band has a new album out later this month, and is playing on the Warped tour this summer, which I’m sure will cause a lot of guys from pop-punk-mangina bands, who spend three hours every morning perfecting the delicate balance of cocking a beany impossibly far back on their hollow skull and Biebering their bangs to their forehead to say, “Fuck. Wow. Shit.  Damn. This is… this is what it’s supposed… shit. I’m a fucking fraud.” I’m looking at you, Disco Curtis.

Thank God for these embeddable widgets that let you stream a whole album or EP in a blog post, because now you can listen to all six tracks on Family by the time I would have finished listing all the different, genre-crossing adjectives necessary to describe Holy Ghost Tent Revival’s sound, and by now, you’ve heard enough of their music that I don’t have to say something like, “it’s as if the Avett parents unsuccessfully used the rhythm method and just kept popping out six more passionate, grassy, rawkus ‘n’ rollers with a horn section.”

My job just got even easier. If a picture’s worth a thousand words, these streamable songs’ word count is pushing out towards the edge of the universe that makes you shake your head and say, “whoa” when you try to consider what’s beyond it. But now, I’m free to say things like, hey how ‘bout them Braves? They sure look shitty again. Or, can you believe this crap with Jenna Jameson and Tito Ortiz? That’s some seriously messed up shit. Or, can you believe this whole Goldman Sachs Senate thing? Sure reminds me of Tito and Jenna.

What’s that? You want to hear Holy Ghost Tent Revival’s previous, full-length album too?

Boom. Done. It’s a wondrous age we live in. You can learn more about the guys here, or just click on the widgets above to get the album or EP. I recommend both.

I’m glad to hear Bret Michaels is doing better. No one wants to see Bret die, for all the usual reasons you don’t want a relatively young and healthy-ish person to die, but even more so, Bret Michaels can’t die, because I can’t stomach the idea of even a single Hooters location getting one degree sadder.

America will weep, as once perky waitresses, now clad in black short shorts and a landslide of running mascara and self-tanning lotion, hand out wet naps for sobbing men to futilely attempt to dry their eyes as they mourn the loss of their hero, the patron saint of headbands hiding hairlines and Harley Davidson stickers on SUVs. The waitresses would be inconsolable too, crying not just for the loss of the man that made the music their mom played during child birth, but also for the loss of option seven on their “plan out“ list. Then the men will cry even more because they feel awkward and ashamed of their hard-ons, brought on by leering at the crying young women, as they try to convince their wife and kids that they are just there for the wings and camaraderie. It’s a horrible image.

Bret seems like a nice guy and has always done what most any other average American guy would do given the opportunity and selection of cowboy hats. In fact, Bret is America. He’s diabetic, sleeveless, and just trying to get back to his success from the 80’s. Bret Michaels is Mr. America, which is all the more reason he cannot die while under contract with Donald Trump.

The Donald is like a combination of PT Barnum, Joe Jackson, and Vince McMahon, but without the bearded woman, talented kids, or latent, repressed homoeroticism of Middle America. He’ll grasp onto any controversy or whorin’ opportunity like a pimp who just loaned a hot, orphan girl $500. Trump would make the Michael Jackson memorial service look like tea at the Plaza by comparison.

The final challenge of Celebrity Apprentice would be to plan Bret’s funeral, and the winner would be whoever made it the most profitable and Ed Hardiest. The service would be broadcast live from the Hard Rock Casino in Vegas. Cocktail waitresses, wearing only black body paint designed to look like widows in mourning, would serve as pallbearers, carrying an unwieldy and large rose-shaped coffin sponsored by Golden Palace. Inevitably, the coffin will become too heavy and awkward, and the mostly naked women with sweaty, painted hands will drop it, and Bret will fall out, which will be no surprise to Trump. What’s the point in televising a funeral if the body’s not going to fall out? Trump will drop to his knees, shake a fist at the sky, and shout, “God, you’re fired!” as pyrotechnics explode around him, and a choir of fat black women emerge from the wings, singing a special, soulful version of “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn,” immediately available for purchase on iTunes.

Bret doesn’t deserve that, so I’m glad he’s doing better.

Banjo? Check. Trombone? Check. Song about South Carolina? Check. Band named after a Southern Stepford Wives society best known for their annual cookbook which contains Campbell’s Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup as a primary ingredient in at least 97% of the recipes? Check. Once again, really seems like someone would have told me about this sooner.

More Junior League Band below, via that badass widget from Reverbnation.