Going Alt Country

I love music and am a big fan of many types. Hell, I admit, I even enjoy watching those losers try to battle it out on American Idol every once in awhile. Okay, please...it really is every once in awhile. I have heard that the show Rock Star: INXS is really good but I couldn't tell you. I guess the winner is going to be the new singer for the band INXS. Their singer hung himself in a hotel room somewhere down under.

So I have this Comcast Rhapsody now, which is a web based music site that let's you find almost any type of web radio station. I have a few but have really been listening to the Alt Country site. For those of you who don't know what Alt Country is, its not quite rock, not quite folk, and not anything you would see on CMT. Its all in the middle of that and beyond. As the great Robert Earl Keen said, "It can best be described as a hotel I once stayed at...Best Western."

Alt country to me is musical freedom. People, artists, who perform music out of the true love of the music. While I am sure they would like t make a buck or two, they shun the very thought of Nashville and big named record labels that are after a "manufactured sound". I mean look at any linear notes from an album by Shania Twain, Tim McGraw, or those fags Rascal Flats...most of their songs are "written" by someone else..."professional song writers". Now go to a Chuck Prophet CD and most of his songs were written and composed by him. If he is singing a song from someone else, usually its a cover of another great musician. A tribute so to speak.

So the inspiration to talk music again came from a band I found on Rhapsody...HAYSEED DIXIE. They were doing a Bluegrass version of the Kiss song "Rock and Roll All Night". I proceeded to check out their web page http://www.hayseed-dixie.com and saw that much of their work, while covers of AC/DC, Kiss, The J Giles Band, etc. is completely genius and original. Like The Gourds version of "Gin and Juice", these guys took something old and made it completely new again. BRILLIANT!!!