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.

Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers have defied genre classification for years, and for the title of their seventh studio album, they finally created a word to describe their sound: Agridustrial.

With the addition of Duane Denison (the Jesus Lizard, The Damn Band, and tons of others) the Shack Shakers have gone from sounding akin to Hank III’s “hellbilly” to simply being kin to it, combining driving, locomotive-metal riffs with roots and regional folk percussion and rhythms to create a sound all their own while painting a horrifying, yet undistorted, apocalyptic portrait of America’s Southern heartland, past, present, and future.

Agridustrial juxtaposes the sounds and stories of times when America was even more shit out of luck to provide context for the modern-day downfall of America’s agrarian culture and industry, our economy, and the average person’s well being.

But don’t let all this talk of agriculture and the heartland cause you to even mutter the words “Cougar Mellencamp.” The Shack Shakers spit skin-peeling and soul-sinking stories of horror that make most Farm Aid types look like they’re peddling pro-government propaganda by comparison. Then again, would you expect less from one of Steven King’s favorite bands?

“The Hills of Hell” tells the story of two real life crucifixions in Kentucky and throws in the tale of a man who was brutally murdered, chewed beyond recognition by hounds, and then hidden in a dead horse’s belly, just for good measure.

“Dixie Iron Fist” projects the subjugation of the Southern everyman set to a frenetic beat comparable to a hummingbird’s heart on meth. It’s not Southern gentility sipping mint juleps in seersucker suits, it’s fighting to survive another day, just so you can wake up to get screwed over by the man again.

But it’s not all just pulse-pounding, frantic and feral, rock ‘n’ hell on Agridustrial. Th’ Legendary Shack Shakers have really come into their own by combining their signature punk-billy with American roots music and agrarian industrial sounds. However, when the Shack Shakers employ roots and folk influences, they’re not drawing from traditional acoustic guitar folk; far from it— they’re pulling in the noises and rhythms of the hard labor that fractured working men’s backs. “Hammer and Tongs” portrays the struggle an unmalleable and defiant man beaten, pounded, and scorched by the machine, set to the beat of actual hammers hitting anvils, as are several other tracks, which also employ sounds from chains, trains, and tractors.

“Lost Cause” draws from hundreds of years of Southern culture, channeling the region’s embracement of lost causes all the way back to the South’s Celtic bloodline, in a haunting Civil War-esque ballad that sounds like the Pogues on quaaludes.

For 14 tracks, Agridustrial haunts, rocks, and rollicks, but is also the kind of album that would probably creep out a girl on your first date. It could equally serve as the soundtrack for the beating of an innocent man as it could a piece of art to be subjectively studied for cultural implications.  It needs to be listened to in the right place and time. Oh, and you probably shouldn’t play it if a pregnant lady is in the room.

You can download a track on their webpage here or pick up the album here.

Last night, the Academy of Country Music Awards were held in Las Vegas. It’s easy to get the ACM’s confused with the CMA’s, because much like commercial country music, it’s all just the same shit in a slightly different order.

Three years ago, Troy Gentry pled guilty to shooting a domesticated, caged bear named “Cubby.” This year the ACM gave Montgomery Gentry their humanitarian award. As horrible as that may be, it still shows more integrity than giving them an award for their music.

Fancy!

Seriously, you’re going to put on that jacket and a $500 cowboy hat, with a perfectly groomed cock trellis for a mustache and expect two weak fists to make you look tough? That just makes it look like the Village People’s wardrobe boy was phoning it in.

Brad Paisley has a paisley print guitar? Well isn’t that just darling.

So, I guess, ultimately, Charlie Daniels lost that fiddle competition with the devil and his soul.

When I saw this, I immediately googled “John Fogerty, IRS problems,” and nothing came up. Did I misspell his name or something?

Taylor Swift performed but didn’t win any awards, which proves there is a God, but he’s a vengeful bastard.

Keith Urban waxes his chest, because, you know, that’s country.

Carrie Underwood won Entertainer of the Year. What? It’s not like they call the category Artist of the Year.

I just can’t figure out how Laura Bell Bundy got a record deal. No idea at all.

Someday, Cowboy Troy will write his auto-biography. It will be the most disturbing book ever written, described as a combination of To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Diary of Anne Frank, and the Cocaine Chronicles.

While I’m sure everyone’s having fun wearing skinny jeans in the desert heat, paying $18 for a bottle of water, and inexplicably wearing Indian headdresses at Coachella, the best show out West this weekend will easily be Brian Wright, Sally Jaye, and Brother Sal’s Hank Williams Tribute show at Zoey’s in Ventura. Obviously there aren’t any video clips from this show, since it hasn’t happened yet, so I went ahead and used that one of Brian and Sally doing “Stormy Waters,” to give you a digitally compressed glimpse of what these two can do together. They give me that feeling I suspect other people get in church– the good feeling, not that one you get when the collection plate comes around and you’ve only got a five dollar bill and no cigarettes.

Brian’s just back from a really successful European run over the past few months. Rumor has it, he’s doing an acoustic set off his new album House on Fire before the Hank Williams tribute starts. If I manage to stay sober enough to remember the details, I’ll write it up next week, but I wouldn’t count on that.

Should be a hell of a show… or you can head up to Coachella and pay $300 to see a bunch of musicians performing on their laptops. Your call.

When I saw that I had been sent a track called “Mountain Song” by a British band, I said to myself, “dear God, please don’t let this be the one song that takes this whole folk revival thing too far and causes me to punch everyone wearing a flannel shirt in the throat.” But don’t worry, we’re safe—it’s good.

Obviously, Treetop Flyers sound a good bit like Crosby, Stills and Nash, but that shouldn’t really be a surprise, considering the band is named after a Stephen Stills song. Sure, you could say it sounds a bit like Fleet Foxes too, but let’s be honest; they sound like CS&N also, and quite frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that. If more bands sounded like CS&N, this world would be a better place.

Treetop Flyers call their music “country soul,” which is fine with me—it’s their band and their music, so they can call it whatever the hell they want. A handful of British critics have referred to them as Americana, which can seem a bit odd at first… you know, English people playing Americana, but there’s actually quite a few groups doing it these days, and it can be really cool to hear our music coming from a slightly different angle. Check out Treetop’s Is It All Worth It, and you’ll see what I mean when the British accents come in on the harmonies.

If the whole idea of British Americana is still bugging you for some reason, first off, you’re kind of being a jerk, and secondly, it’s really nothing new. Americana, Bluegrass, and Country are all firmly routed in traditional British and Celtic folk music, (not to mention the fact that our national anthem is set to the tune of an old British drinking song) so it’s really kind of like that whole mirror reflecting a mirror thing that goes on into infinity. However, if American bands start playing British-infused Americana, we may open up a musical worm whole that could destroy the concept of time and envelop us all in a cataclysmic implosion of nothingness. So, let’s try to avoid that.

You can download Mountain Song for free, or pick up the EP To Bury the Past here. From what I gather, there’s a new album on the way too.

American Aquarium’s new album Small Town Hymns is out May 1^st. In the mean time, they’ve posted a few of their new songs online, including “Rattlesnake,” above.

At a time when so many bands are busy dicking around with art school interpretations of roots music, trying to reinvent the wheelbarrow and create an avant-garde Americana revolution, it’s refreshing to hear American Aquarium throw a fastball right down the middle. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not following some sort of path or formula. Quite the opposite— they’re following the songs, and frontman BJ Barham can write a hell of a song.

A lot of songwriters would need three rhyming dictionaries and a farmer’s almanac to write the line, “and when she called me ‘darlin,’ I started caterwaulin’,” but for BJ it comes naturally, as if there’s no other way to describe how he felt at that moment. But it’s not just BJ alone he makes these songs so solid. The rest of the band shows remarkable maturity for what’s still a relatively young group of guys. No one’s trying to show off or act like they’re God’s gift to guitars, as if they could make it rain and impregnate a woman with a single note. They play exactly what is needed to support and drive the songs and stories, rocking just as hard as possible, but without getting in the way.

Some people compare BJ Barham to Ryan Adams, primarily because they’re both from North Carolina, which I suppose is better than comparing him to, say Jesse Helms, but I’ve never felt the Ryan Adams comparison was quite right. Sure, in a very broad since, you could say, “hey, if you like Whiskeytown’s stuff or Heartbreaker, you’ll like this,” but it’s a bit of a misnomer to say he’s another Ryan Adams. I always sort of got the feeling that if a bar fight broke out around Ryan Adams, he would slap himself in the face, curl up in the fetal position and cry until the dust settled. Then he’d track his sobbing over distorted voicemails of Courtney Love accusing him of stealing all of Bean’s money and release it as a double album, insisting it’s punk rock. I don’t think BJ would do that.

Sure, there’s plenty of heartbreak in BJ’s songs, but it’s less like the type of heartbreak someone would scribble in their diary at an independent coffee shop, and more like the kind of heartbreak you’d yell into that merciless bitch’s voicemail a couple hours after closing time. Listen to “I Hope He Breaks Your Heart” alternately titled “Whore song.” (off the previous album).

See? BJ gets his heartbroken like a man. You can’t help but shout along with him and sincerely hope that girl got her heart crushed too.

You can listen to some other songs off Small Town Hymns here, or you can go pick up the last one Dances  for the Lonely here.

In the past, a good number of critics have tritely repeated the non-committal cop-out, “you’ll either love or hate Deer Tick’s music,” primarily due to John’s voice. Well, thanks for the insight, dipshit. However, Deer Tick’s upcoming Black Dirt Sessions will make that statement even more absurd and will probably out a few shitty writers for cribbing off other lazy reviews from 2004. The writing and arrangements on the upcoming album leave little to be criticized and support John’s haunting vocals brilliantly.

The album’s out June 8^th, and believe me, you’ll hear a lot more about it on this site and others between now and then.

Also, I’m guessing it’s little coincidence that Delta Spirit will be releasing their new album that day too. In case you haven’t heard, John from Deer Tick, Matt Vasquez from Delta Spirit, and Taylor Goldsmith from Dawes recorded an album together in Nashville, under the name MG&V. Oh, and I did I mention it was recorded at one of my favorite studios on Nashville? Badass.