Twangville

A music blog featuring Alt-Country, Americana, Indie, Rock, Folk & Blues. Est. 2005.

Monday Morning Video – Wilco

By

Winter’s just around the corner, so let’s get you in the mood with this one: Wilco at the Snow Job Festival, Marble Mountain Ski Resort in Newfoundland, March 18, 1997 — outdoors, in the dead of winter, surrounded by snowy mountains. None of it slowed the band down. Being There had come out five months […]

Twangville Presents: Joelton Mayfield and Ben de la Cour

By

In January 1961, a 19-year-old Bob Dylan made his first New York City appearance at Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street. That same year, he turned up in Cambridge at Club 47 — now Club Passim — and talked his way onto the stage between another act’s sets. Both rooms are still standing, still booking songwriters. […]

Twangville x Dial Back Sound: Live in Boston & NYC

By

While not often discussed, the choice of recording studio has a profound impact on a record. Great music rarely comes from sterile, assembly-line spaces—it comes from studios with character and warmth, filled with vintage gear and musical mojo in the walls. That mindset is at the heart of Dial Back Sound, located in the quiet […]

Now & Then: The Yawpers’ Teething and the reach of Fire of Love

By

The Yawpers have never hidden the influence of bands that pushed country and blues through a punk framework. Nate Cook has specifically cited the Gun Club, which makes Fire of Love, the band’s 1981 debut, a strong reference point for Teething. The connection is not simply aggression or guitar tone. Both records treat roots music as working material, preserving its rhythmic and melodic foundations while making it fit the concerns and energy of their own moment.

Twangville On The Road: The Fall Showcase Series

By

We’re taking Twangville on the road this fall — and you’re invited! We’re thrilled to unveil our Fall Showcase Series: seven distinct nights of live music across three states. We’ve put together an exceptional lineup of songwriters, roots revivalists, and road-tested troubadours, from folk to rock ’n’ roll and plenty in between. From a cozy […]

Drivin N Cryin: Still Writing the Story

By

Several days after speaking with Kevn Kinney, I watched a storm roll across the mesas outside Taos, New Mexico. Purple lightning split the sky, eventually forcing Drivin N Cryin’s scheduled outdoor performance indoors. The band adjusted. Instead of the full-throttle rock show one might expect from a group that has spent nearly four decades making […]

“Don’t Fence Me In” – a Premiere from Sanford

By

Brooklyn by way of South Carolina, Jay Sanford follows January’s Big Tent Revival with an old-school two-sided (digital) single. The A-side, “Don’t Fence Me In,” takes a honky-tonk two-step and runs it through a rock engine — same dance-floor bones, more muscle. Sanford lays out the thesis in the chorus: “I do some honky-tonkin’ but […]

Prodigal Father – a Premiere from Kevin Gordon

By

Kevin Gordon is as authentic as they come. His Southern stories are rooted in truth, though only he knows exactly how much. He brings those tales to life with a literary eye, set against guitars as gritty as the stories themselves. There are countless reasons a great song gets left off an album — which […]