With 10 simultaneous official stages and over 80 private ones across 4 nights and 8-10 hours per night, there’s no shortage of music at FAI. There are a number of strategies you can employ, from just picking a room and letting the curator’s choices wash over you, to a mad-dash scramble after every couple of […]
Folk Alliance International 2020 Conference
One of the things I look forward to coming out of the holidays is the annual Folk Alliance conference. It’s equal parts business conference and music festival: so work and play together. This year it was held in New Orleans, where the food added a third segment that was a big part of many conversations. […]
Thunder And Rain – Passing In the Night
I am continually fascinated how some bands hew to the same sound in their music for decades, and yet it somehow still sounds fresh. Other bands wander the musical landscape and manage to make many genres their own. Such is the case with the latest from Colorado’s Thunder And Rain, entitled Passing In the Night. […]
Best Of 2019 – Shawn’s Picks
As is tradition for those of us writing at Twangville, we start wondering what the other’s favorite 2019 records are not long after the turkey cools at Thanksgiving. Some of us are more organized than others. Here are my favorites among what I heard this year. 1.Hayes Carll – What It Is. I’ve always liked […]
EP Gems: The Family Band & Kailey Nicole
Before I fall into the end-of-year routine I wanted to highlight a couple of EP’s that struck me particularly well. One’s been out a couple of months and the other releases next month. I’ll start with the one that’s not out just yet, Kailey Nicole’s self-titled release. Raised in southern California, Nicole started her artistic […]
Hannah & Falco – Field Notes
I love it when friends turn me on to great new music. Chatting recently with the folks at smallsongs, I got turned on to the German Americana duo, Hannah & Falco. With their latest record, Field Notes, the couple shows you can deliver cutting observations on weighty subjects without the music itself being too heavy. […]
Triggers And Slips – The Stranger
Like a 5-year-old watching the parade as the circus comes to town, I just sat there mesmerized as the latest from Triggers And Slips, The Stranger, passed by. Equal parts classic rock and country, front man and leader Morgan Snow has captured a musical style that transports you back in time if you lived through […]
Stoney LaRue – Onward
Sometimes things sneak up on you. I’ve heard Stoney RaRue a few times over the years, but it wasn’t until I listened to his latest album, Onward, that I realized he’s been around 20 years. It was a bit of the same thing with the record, produced by Gary Nicholson who also co-wrote most of […]
The House Of Songs
The creative process of writing good music has been compared to catching lightning in a bottle. The implication is that it’s random good luck. Yet time and time again you hear of artists who have a process they follow and a string of great songs that came out of it. Similarly, musicians frequently get together […]
Scott Walker – The Rock House Project
Back in the day I had the (mis)fortune of having to make many long drives across various parts of the south central U.S. This was before satellite radio or iPods and rental cars didn’t have tape decks. So you listened to the radio; mostly country music, and in more than a few of those DJ’s […]