I probably shouldn’t call attention to the fact that this post is very late. Maybe I’d be able to sneak it in at the eleventh hour, literally, with little fanfare. But Sam, Clay, Shan and Joe all know I’m late because we just had breakfast this morning at Veselka in New York and Sam straight up asked me, “Sean, aren’t you going to post today?” So my secret was shattered over a plate of raspberry blintzes. It was the largest gathering of us 3hive kids since we started this thing up. We talked shop and helped Joe finish off his potato pancakes. Anyway, my apologies to anyone who noticed the lack of new music for the better part of the day. You’ll find it was worth the wait with this “country-noir” track from Micah P. Hinson. Jade Tree is thankfully re-issuing Hinson’s debut EP, The Baby and the Satellite and will be shedding new, well-deserved light on this young Texan. His album from last year, Micah P. Hinson and the Gospel of Progress was one of my favorites, and seemed to make more noise in the UK than here in the States. Here’s hoping folks start catching up.
Shelley Short
Call it a genetic defect, but I will always be a sucker for a woman who seduces not with sex appeal but with intellect. Shelley Short’s beautifully facile voice sounds like a lullaby, but the kind that you might hear Patsy Cline or Loretta Lynn sing: resolute heartbreakers about women who are clearly smarter than the men in their lives and need to share their blues. Short isn’t all the way that old-fashioned, but her resignation and independence come through thanks to her distinct sense of herself and a recording style that favors echoey live instrumentation to a canned studio sound. It’s precious, yes, but for all the right reasons.
Trace Wiren
When the tunes are coming out of Salt Lake City, it’s hard to resist a little comparison: “I’m a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock and roll.” Trace Wiren has that in common with Donny and Marie, that’s for sure. However, she’s also a little bit folksinger, a little taken with the blues, and a whole lot fresh. Download “Trouble at Home” now and start preparing your summer roadtrip mix.
Cub Country
Cub Country is Jeremy Chatelain who’s done time with bands like Jets to Brazil, Handsome, and (taking it way back) the SLC hardcore band Lumberjack — a band I interviewed on my first radio show, a little punk rock thing called “Unrest on the Seventh Day.” All-around quality this kid Jeremy. Cub Country began while Jeremy was living in Brooklyn as an outlet for his own songs that had no home. Ironic that a move out east initiated his western sound. It’s 2006 (a new year for all of us, have a happy and safe one!) and Cub Country is now situated in Seattle and should have a new album tracked and ready to go soon. Email Jeremy and tell him you like what you hear and can’t wait for more. Oh yeah, and tell him I said hello.
White Hassle
I first heard White Hassle on the Grand Life compilation for the Soho Grand boutique hotel…because that’s how we roll in the 2-1-2. I wanted to share “Watertank” with y’all but the whole thing is not available for free online (head over to eMusic and pick it up for some well-spent pennies). In the meantime, here are three tracks that show off Marcellus Hall’s smartypants roots (he’s also a fantastic illustrator): part Cake’s John McRea and part the Magnetic Fields’ Stephin Merritt. “Resolution (Resolution)” will help you kick off your new year on a reflective note.
Nic Armstrong & the Thieves
If you’re wondering where all the mods have gone, Nic Armstrong has your answer. Since winning a songwriting contest in his native England a couple years back, Armstrong has launched a little British Invasion by way of Austin. And that’s not just a fancy classification: Armstrong and his Thieves have circumvented a few decades of Brit-Pop and cock rock and gone straight for the birth of the mod. The result is a roadhouse rhythm and beat in line with the earliest offerings from the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Beatles and, most of all, the Kinks, which in turn was a British working class take on American R&B and Boogie Woogie. Throw in a little country and western and you have something that is reverently old but shakes it as good as new.
Castanets
While he may share the same record label as pop revivalist Sufjan Stevens, Castanets’ mainman Raymond Raposa creates a space of his own with what his bio calls “mutant country” — somber tales of heartbreak spread over wonderfully sparse, ecclectic instrumentation. Let those slow embers burn and keep your days warm and hopeful (those who have already started to see snowflakes swirl in the air know what I’m talking about).
Pyramid
I’ve been sitting on this one for a while now. Note I say “sitting on,” not “sleeping on,” which is an important distinction because it means I’m more of a jerk than a slacker. Unlike many of the emails we receive in the ol’ suggestionbox(at)3hive.com, I actually downloaded these songs mere moments after Ryan recommended the Charlotte, NC-based octet. So here I’ve been, soaking in their smoldering, headphone-friendly country goodness lo these past couple months without even telling my closest friends about it. Please accept my apologies and let me make it up to you by providing you with a direct link to purchase their fine debut, The First American, as those Amazon and Insound links below probably won’t help much until they land a label or distribution deal.
Pine Hill Haints
Where some alt/country bands try to sing and pick like their forefathers so desperately that you can smell their formal musical training a mile away, you get a sense that the Pine Hill Haints (it’s an arcane Southern way to say “haunts†– I looked it up) get their legitimacy not from aping some Smithsonian Folkways compilation or other but from, well, from just making sweet Appalachian porch music. The Alabama skater friends thread together the romance, anxiety, religion, determination, and abandon that makes the American South such an enigma – and such a fertile breeding ground for a band that inadvertently keeps the old traditions alive while creating one all of their own.
Truckstop Honeymoon
It seems like an appropriate time to post some New Orleans levee-billy — courtesy of Mike West and Katie Euliss of Arabi, LA — with sincere hopes that Truckstop Honeymoon will still be making these wonderful sounds. Bluegrass, southern rock, country, Anglo-folk all contribute the background to the wonderful narratives presented by this husband and wife crew. Check out “Capitol Hill” and “Walk of Shame” to get a sense of the political and cultural landscape, then hit their website to buy the two Truckstop Honeymoon albums.