Launching the video for “Black Water,” Barbara K played a free show at the Cactus Cafe (newly under KUT programming) with help from friends Richard Bowden, Bill Oliver, Ben Livingston and Mo McMorrow.

“Black Water” is available for download at Artists for Media Diversity, a wonderful service for community radio stations to raise funds through live music.

With a full band, singer-songwriter Will T. Massey made his Momo’s debut Wednesday night accompanied by a full band including Richard Bowden (fiddle), Davis Ducharme-Jones (guitar), Mark “GumB” Williams (bass), and Ram Zimmerman (drums).

Check out Will T. Massey.com for more info.

“Why are you guys so quiet out there?” Stan Ridgway greeted the crowd at the Saxon Pub Tuesday night. “Wake the fuck up!”

The former Wall of Voodoo lead singer with his signature nasal, almost electric twang led his band (wife Pietra Wexstun on keyboards and electronics, Rick King on guitar) though the entire, newly-released Neon Mirage record before a “cavalcade of hits” – joking every step of the way.

Much of the comedy came through quips about the club’s co-founder Joe Abels, the large Saxon armor outside and playful jokes with sound man Richard Vannoy.

Of course, ample (and sometimes over-the-top) use of the synthesizer made for several humorous moments as well, providing atmosphere for a few off the cuff monologues, including one about camping on Joe Abel’s lawn in Pflugerville (see video).

Any timing goofs, especially with the backing tracks provided via laptop, were blamed on the show being the third date of the tour, with the addition of “We’ll get it right by the time we get to Germany.”

The album features both Dave Alvin and Austinite Amy Farris, who passed away last year. A dedication to Amy before the reflective “Halfway There” garnered a special applause.

“Wandering Star,” a song influenced by the “new” Nashville sound, back when new meant Patsy Cline and Owen Bradley and Dylan’s “Lenny Bruce” (“about multiple subjects, as anyone who takes a trip to Planet Bob knows”).

As the band segued into the “hits” section of the evening, Stan joked that we had made it, albeit some scraped knees. “Lonely Town,” “Call of the West” and “Ring of Fire” followed, with a leisurely stroll through the audience – during which Pietra kept the guitar sounds running, while Stan put on a good show of air guitar.

Unfortunately, the crowd was either actually asleep or on their way to dreamland when the band left the stage. Scattered applause was eventually fortified by some hoots and hollers as the side door opened and a cigarette-smoking Stan emerged. A few moments of discussion about smoking bans ensued before launching into “a song that’s been following me around,” “Camouflage.”

As Stan had said before “Neon Mirage,” the show was about the weird and wonderful journey – not the destination.

This year, the Americana Music Association could simply give every nominee an award. We imagine that would be easier than debating the merits of each of the albums, artists and songs on their list.

And we’re not about to try and guess the winners — we’ll stay in suspense until the ceremony, September 9 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

How do you pick an artist of the year when the choices are Ryan Bingham (fresh from the Crazy Heart buzz), Patty Griffin (and her unexpected turn towards gospel on Downtown Church), Levon Helm (who won the first ever Americana Grammy for Electric Dirt), Steve Earle (and his appropriately named tribute album, Townes) and Ray Wylie Hubbard (who released his acclaimed A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There Is No C) earlier this year).

Add to that the conundrum of choosing between Rosanne Cash’s The List, Dave Rawlings Machine’s A Friend of A Friend and the aforementioned Patty Griffin and Ray Wylie Hubbard albums for album of the year. Or Band of Heathens, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Dave Rawlings Machine and The Avett Brothers for duo/group of the year. Impossible.

Other honors will go to rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson, John Mellencamp, Luke Lewis (Chairman of Universal Music Group Nashville), multi-instrumentalist Greg Leisz and producer Brian Ahern. As usual, the awards show will be hosted by Jim Lauderdale and features Buddy Miller leading the house band.

To attend the Americana Music Association Awards visit AmericanaMusic.org

“You can make up the rest,” Dave Gonzalez joked as he sat down in the court yard of the Hotel San Jose on South Congress with fellow Stone River Boy Mike Barfield.

On the heels of the band’s first release, Love on the Dial, the two were ready to look back at the recording and they’ll be back in Austin at the end of the week, playing the Continental Club on Friday night.

Dave: We’d started the record on our very first tour a year ago, we were up in Nebraska, going on two years. I’ve known Mike for years and years and he had a couple of real good songs. When we first decided to start playing together he’d go “I’ve got these songs,” and I’d go “Yeah, I’ve got these songs and man, I like a couple of those.” When we got up on our first tour in Nebraska, a friend of ours has a studio and he called out of the blue. He knew we were coming to town and my buddy, Charlie Johnson, the audio engineer on our record said, “If you’re gonna be in town for a few days, come by the studio. My buddy’s got this great studio, let’s go cut a couple of your tunes.” We did and those are the two tunes that started the whole thing.

After that we kept planning tours to go up to Nebraska in this little club that we always play call the Zoo Bar and the studio was a few blocks away. We’d go play a couple gigs, get enough money form our gig to get some studio time. One time we drove up, he [Mike] was so sick, he was laying in the back of the Cadillac and I said, “Man, we’ve go to make it, we’ve got studio time booked and he had a couple of brand new songs and I knew we had to get them on tape. And they came out good.

Mike: We kind of paid for it as we went, doing live shows.

D: A couple of times we went up there, we wrote the songs the night before the studio and barely had them written out and finished them in the studio. There’s a beauty to that, a hunger and a spontaneity a fresh born, new born thing when you just create it and boom, hit record and that’s what I really like about our new record we worked our butts off but we captured it fresh. It was on the verge of barely being able to pull it off but we did it.

M: It’s mostly originals, a cover by a friend, select, really rare covers

D: Covers that people would never guess… either that they’re covers or who did them in the first place. It’s our own arrangements and take, it’s a sound we’ve created from years and years of us both being into roots music, knowing each other for a long time and digging all these roots styles: country, blues, soul, jazz funk, R&B… we mixed that all together.
Stephen Bruton’s “Bluebonnet Blue” leads off the record, how did that song get picked?

M: I’ve been doing that song for a long time in another band in live shows and had met Stephen a few times and told him we were doing that tune. He was one of those guys that I didn’t even know all that well but every time he’d see you he’d always say, “Hey.”

The song, we changed it, it’s nothing like his version and we did our own twist on it. It’s a tip of the hat to him but first and foremost because it’s a great song. The other thing I thought that it was an honor to do something by someone we respected, it kind of keeps him alive.

D: We kept trying to cut it, we had already lost a few really good friends and Stephen Bruton was sick and the word was he wasn’t doing that good and Mike said, “He’s real sick and I really want to do ‘Bluebonnet Blue,’” and I said, “Yea, we’ve got to cut it, let him hear it before it’s too late.” We just hope he hears it now.

How is it being Stone River Boys instead of Hacienda Brothers or any of the other bands you’ve been in?

D: We made 45s when we started out, and now we have to make CDs. But we’ve got vinyl on the works. In fact, the whole idea was to make a 45, when we went to Nebraska.

M: I was always the only singer in most of the bands I was in and Dave was too, we’re enjoying the variety, it’s better for the audience and we can share. I enjoy the other things, harmonica, maracas, it’s more fun.

D: Not having to be the front man, we can play country soul, blues… We’ve got multiple soloists so I don’t have to carry the whole solos, we’ve got steel guitar, it’s a neat band for us because w’er older and we like a lot of different music. Maybe you really like high paced rock and roll or country, you’ll hear some of that but then the people over there that like groovy soul can say, “Hey, we like that.”

M: And country means something different now days, we’re not putting anybody down but we like the old country, but we’re not part of that modern thing.

D: When we write, we try to write like we were going to take a song to Merle Haggard or Al Green. I’m not just saying that, we really try to write like we’re going to deliver a song to Willie Nelson.

M: It’s a good mark to strive for, to write something that someone like that might approve of.

D: And we like each others driving. That’s weird because we’ve both been band leaders for a long time and did all the driving and all the singing and now it’s like “you want to drive,” Ok. We relax when each other drives and that’s very rare. For twenty years I couldn’t relax if someone else drove.

M: Some of them fall into the aggressive category.

D: Actually, all the Stone River Boys have driven. It’s an amazing band — they all play good and all drive good.
So which were the first two songs that you recorded?

D: First two were ‘Lovers Prison,’ which he cut with his other band way back when but I loved the song so much and I had a snappy arrangement to it. We gave it a 1967 Johnny Paycheck treatment to it and ‘Giant Step.’ The trippy thing is that it’s a cover tune and a lot of people know it, but I never knew it.

What I liked about it was that he sang it with an acoustic guitar and as soon as he sang it to me I heard a 12-sting guitar on the intro. That’s what set the pace for our record. It’s like “Wow, they did a song by Carole King,” and we’re like “We love Carole King,” and the Monkees did it and Taj Mahal did it, but what I liked about it was that I’d only heard him singing it, so when he sang it to me I didn’t have any preconceived idea of how the song was. We took it and made our own thing out of it.

And when the album was finished, where did you go from there?

D: The thing is that when we boiled it all down and shopped it, we went to Nashville we went out west we called everybody we knew and it’s a long, tough road to find a good label. We finally got signed, Cow Island, they’re a retro country label and we didn’t have to prove ourselves or explain anything.

Last year at SXSW we were playing at the Evangeline Café and Bill Hunt walked in and saw us and said says,”I’ve got a country label, I’m interested in you guys.”

M: The label thing is so weird now, it’s so hard to find a good one. The middle class has been eroded out of the music business.

D: There’s nothing wrong with a low budget recording, we just made one, but there’s so many people that are good artists that cant afford to record right because there’s no labels.
But we kept cutting and writing and sending out demos going, “Maybe you’ll like that one, or this one” and our managers were calling in all the troops. But Cow Island agreed on 12 songs, we kept going back and forth and we had to cut 4 songs out. One of them was a semi-outside tune that I had written and it was ok to leave it off.

M: Maybe it’ll make the next record.

D: Maybe, but then we had this other really obscure Mel Tillis song called ‘It All Depends on How You Drink the Wine’ and we cut it as a sound check in the studio. I told Mike that he should get behind the song and almost talked it like this old drunk dude sitting in the bar. We kicked it around but finally on the last time to the studio it was the last thing we did that and special.

M: I though it was weird at first and I sound like Boris Karloff to me.

D: But with the new record deal, they wanted 10 originals, 2 covers. We’re holding it for the next record and if not it’s going to be a 45.

M: It’s almost recitation.

D: It’s the sound of the 60s that no one can get these days… it’s this crazy sound in my head that’s so out, it’s in. Somehow or another the song will get out.

You had mentioned that there would be a vinyl release…

M: Yeah, to me, when you have a record in your hands, that means everything. An album was a big thing, and the album art was better, you had something to look at. It was a bigger thing and it had more mystery.

D: It had more substance, I’ve got records hanging on my walls, it means ‘OK we really did it, it’s there forever.’ I don’t feel like I trust CDs.

M: It’s like digital TV, you get this fragmentation.

D: How can you say that’s better than the analog?

M: I just read this book called “House of Hits” about the Sugar Hill Studios in Houston. It’s a really good book about the history. Back then they’d press the record right there, it was like a machine shop, there’s an art but there’s some equipment. It’s an interesting story. It was neat to hear something about that, this guy who knew nothing about it and learned it on his own, build some of his own gear and everything.

D: I’m a nuts and bolts guy, always, since I was a kid “I’ve got a microphone what happens when I put them together,can I get a double sound?” I was always trying to figure out how to record and make a demo or double and it kept evolving to being able to go to the studio.

M: We both believe in trying to capture it, to get as close to live as we can. Instead of thinking we could go back in later. We like it to have an urgency, like you used to have to cut.

D: All of our really great favorite records, they were’t overdubbing that much, they were trying to cut as much as possible at the same time. The bands playing off the singer and the singers playing off the band. We didn’t have the budget to do a lot, we’d go in and record four tunes and we’ve made enough records between all of us that we knew that once we’re in there we’ve got a basic plan and everybody agrees and hit it, a couple takes in we’ve got it. As fresh as we could get it.

M: We’d have a gig to play, too. W’ed get up from the first night, go the studio and then go to the gig. It paid for it, it was a sense of accomplishment.

D: You forget the gig but we made a record and we’d drive home with it and make more plans. Luckily they like us at the club.

And what kind of music is on your dial?

M: Johnny Paycheck, Waylon, I like old country and I like old soul. That’s what we mostly listen to but we have a couple iPods and the only things that work in the van are the cassette player but we have that thing you can put in to the ipod and I like some stuff going on with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings and I even like the Amy Winehouse stuff, that records really good and I’ve been more excited about more of the women I’ve heard. I love the old stuff, it’s hard to beat someone of the old. I don’t like to blind myself to the new but there are old records that are new to you and it’s like finding a little treasure. Or things you might have heard before and revisit.

D: A lot of times we’re driving down the road and since we make so much noise for a living, we get real quite I’ll look around and these two guys are sleeping and these two a re reading and I have time to think

M: You get aurally fatigued because we’re in loud, compressed nightclubs and you just ned to get a break form it. We’ll listen for a while and get into tit but then we shut it down.

Photo courtesy The Stone River Boys

Dear physical CDs in your flimsy, plastic jewel cases and inconsistently-sized cardboard sleeves,

Goodbye, farewell, adieu. It’s time to leave you behind so I can listen to my new, truer love—digital.

To be fair you should know what happened between us. It’s not your fault, really, but you’re bulky, and heavy, and you get damaged too easily on car rides. Your delicate boxes splinter and break sending you sailing towards the floor whenever I opened you and it takes too much equipment to play with you anymore.

Digital, my new beau, is compact. I can fit thousands of songs in the same footprint that a singular CD would take. I can find those songs quickly, with searches and sorting and I can even shuffle at will, no more mix tapes and burned CDs floating around in the console. I know that it’s not perfect, I do miss your inserts but to be perfectly honest, I cheated on you with vinyl, too.

I’m sure I’ll see you around town, there are few situations that you are truly the best.

And about that newer, truer love… so many extensions it can make your head spin. I prefer the FLAC format for live shows, archiving and anything else where lossless is important. But FLAC and iTunes don’t play nice so for simple listening, MP3 or its brother AAC are just fine.

When it comes to organization of the music, instead of stacks of records there are folders within folders of files on my hard drive. And to make sense of all that are genres, artists, albums, sort by fields and more. Plus, utilities like TuneUp for iTunes (both Mac and PC).

I’ve been testing it for a month or so and other than some quirks and its inability to understand my filling system it has been able to find a good chunk of the missing artwork and even figure out that “Track 01″ is actually “This Train” by Ella Jenkins. Not bad. Some of the more obscure songs and artists it still can’t handle but it’s still pretty “automagic” as their site touts. If only it could query the databases over at eTree for the live music…

For better of for worse I’ve updated, caught up to the future and (most importantly) backed up, my music collection. It’s portable, sortable and searchable for that “I want to hear that one song by that one guy but I can’t remember which album it’s on or who did it but it’s called…” moments.

Though, I may have to continue my flirtatious affair with vinyl.

Watch 4 more videos below.

With so many artists having recorded John Prine’s songs, creating a compilation of covers would have been all too easy, and boring.

Great as Bonnie Raitt’s cover of “Angel From Montgomery” and David Allan Coe’s version of “You Never Even Call Me By My Name” are, we’ve heard them hundreds of times.

But the twelve artists on Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine are funky and a little off-beat, just like the songs. And after four decades, there are certainly plenty of tunes to rediscover.

Some of the recordings are faithful, like The Avett Brothers’ peppy, fiddle-infused “Spanish Pipedream” and “Far From Me” sparsely performed by Justin Townes Earle. Others rock and swing, like Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst with the Mystic Valley Band on the quirky “Wedding Day In Funeralville” from Common Sense and “Daddy’s Little Pumpkin” with an upbeat, rockabilly-vibe from The Drive-By Truckers.

The harmony of Deer Tick and Liz Isenberg on “Unwed Fathers” mirrors the duets of John Prine and Iris Dement and Justin Vernon’s (Bon Iver) take on “Bruised Orange (Chain of Sorrows)” sounds like John singing with some extra echo effects.

Matching songs with artists, Old Crow Medicine Show’s “Angel From Montgomery” fits the group’s newgrass stylings perfectly and the injection of shameless pop into Prine’s music as on Those Darlins’ version of the tongue-in-cheek “Let’s Talk Dirty In Hawaiian” highlights the raucous trios’ vocals.

Even as a “songs of” record, there are some lesser-known gems such as “The Late John Garfield Blues” recorded by Sara Watkins (Nickel Creek) and the nearly spoken version of “Six O’Clock News” from Lambchop that will find fresh ears among Prine fans and as a whole, the record should help bring some new listeners to the body of work of an amazing songwriter.

Download Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows: Songs of John Prine from

Celebrating the release of her new record, Cry ‘Till You Laugh, the amazing Terri Hendrix along with her talented band Lloyd Maines and Glenn Fukunaga took the stage at the Cactus Café for two sets of rockin’ folk/country fused with jazz, swing and blues.