John Prine / Brandi Carlile / Sturgill Simpson / "Summer's End"

"Summer's End" is from Prine's fantastic new album, The Tree of Forgiveness.

Top 20 Albums of 2018 - First Quarter Report

1. Brandi Carlile - By the Way, I Forgive You

2. Caitlyn Smith - Starfire

3. Ashley McBryde - Girl Going Nowhere

4. Dallas Moore - Mr. Honky Tonk

5. First Aid Kid - Ruins

6. Courtney Marie Andrews - May Your Kindness Remain

7. Caleb Caudle - Crushed Coins

8. Kacey Musgraves - Golden Hour

9. Courtney Patton - What It's Like to Fly Alone

10. Buffalo Tom - Quiet and Peace

11. Ruby Boots - Don't Talk About It

12. Wade Bowen - Solid Ground

13. Mike & The Moonpies - Steak Night at the Prairie Rose

14. Trixie Mattel - One Stone

15. Whiskey Wolves of the West - Country Roots

16. Anderson East - Encore

17. Josh Grider - Good People

18. Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats - Tearing at the Seams

19. Ross Cooper - I Rode the Wild Horses

20. Pedigo's Magic Pilsner - s/t

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*there are a few recent and forthcoming albums I haven't listened to enough to rank yet

**This is just Trailer's top 20 - year end list will include all contributors

New Video / Brandi Carlile / "The Joke"

From her brilliant new album By the Way, I Forgive You.

Farce the Music's Top 11 Songs of 2017

11. The Kernal - Tennessee Sun

A cool 70s country inspired Americana roller with a simple earworm of a refrain. "Letting go of everything that I don't need on my way down" brings to mind the vibe of Son Volt's "Windfall," but this song looks back at the past before embracing the blank slate of the future.

10. Kate Rhudy - I Don't Think You're An Angel (Anymore)

I love everything about this song. The gentle instrumentation, the heavenly harmonies, and the somehow sweet but venomous at the same time lyrics. This song's a beauty.

9. Daddy Issues - High St.

Yeah, I miss the rock of the 90s but that's not why I dig these ladies. They inhabit these throwback pop-grunge tunes with a wise-ass wink and a modern gravity. The whole album is killer, but this one's the best of the bunch, in my estimation.

8. Tyler Childers - Whitehouse Road

Though he's been at it for years, Childers made his introductions to the Americana community at large this year in a big way. His album Purgatory has graced many a "best of 2017" list, and it's not just because he's the 'hot new thing.' Childers' lyrics cut to the heart of the matter but they get there aimed from his unique perspective. "Whitehouse Road" is about too much partying the wrong way, but it still comes off like a singalong for the good times. 

7. John Mayer - In the Blood

I have not been a Mayer fan in the past. I've always realized he was a talented guitarist, and that his songs were well-crafted, but something just never clicked for me. "In the Blood" is a revelation. Well-crafted, beautifully written, and masterfully performed. With this great song, and his hilarious Twitter account, I've likely turned the corner on Mr. Mayer.

6. The War on Drugs - Strangest Thing

6 minutes and 41 seconds of low-key classic rock bliss. The guitar solo is a cathartic release. 

5. Craig Finn - God in Chicago

A short story set to music shouldn't work this well as a song, but "God in Chicago" is an understated gem. Only a one-time refrain/chorus is sung - the rest of the song is spoken word, mostly over a simple piano melody. It's a song about tying up loose ends and making sense of tragedy, which you might not expect to get from a story about a drug deal. 

4. Ruston Kelly - Black Magic

This song was stuck in my head more often than any other in 2017. The chorus is just so damn catchy. And this song is so dark. It's the antithesis of a love song. The imagery evokes a horror movie. Though it's likely a misheard line on my part (and that of all the lyrics websites), I'd still love for Ruston to explain what the line "Love is like a bag of drugs, it blows out both your knees" means. Oh, and I'm guessing the reference to Ryan Adams' "Love is Hell" is intentional.

3. Brandi Carlile - The Joke

A song for the underdog. I'm usually a lyrics guy, but I didn't even realize what the song was about the first 3 or 4 times I heard it - I was just in awe. That the song is an anthem for the times without getting remotely political makes it that much better. Carlile really turns loose here. Breathtaking. 

2. Turnpike Troubadours - Pay No Rent

A selfless wish for good tidings. A true love song - whether that love be for a one-time significant other or a friend who comes and goes. Evan Felker brings songs like these to life with colorful detail, everyman philosophy, and warm sincerity. Besides the solid lyricism, "Pay No Rent" is relentlessly catchy, memorable, and it just makes you feel good. 

1. Sunny Sweeney - Bottle By My Bed

A good artist can make you appreciate a song that doesn't necessarily relate to your life. A great artist can make you feel exactly what he or she is going through when they sing the words, no matter what they're about. Sunny Sweeney is a great artist, and this is a fantastic song. I dare you not to feel the longing of a woman who desperately wants to be a mother when you hear "Bottle by My Bed." It just aches. A career song.

You Must Hear This: Brandi Carlile "The Joke"

From her forthcoming album (co-produced by Dave Cobb & Shooter Jennings) By the Way, I Forgive You. This is stunning.

Sunday Mornin' Music: Brandi Carlile & The Secret Sisters

Song Premiere: Caroline Reese - Airshow

Today we've got a song premiere from Pennsylvania songstress Caroline Reese. Caroline grew up outside Reading, Pennsylvania, west of Philadelphia where the rust belt meets Amish country. Her mom ran a horse farm and her dad sold antiques, both facts which certainly inform the old-soul tendencies in her songs. She and her band, the Drifting Fifth, deal with vulnerability and trying to move on in life and love on the new album.

She and the Drifting Fifth have toured nationally and opened for Grammy nominees and winners including Chris Stapleton and Brandi Carlile. Reese has also opened up for americana stalwarts John Hiatt, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Corb Lund, and the Secret Sisters.

We're premiering "Airshow" from Reese's forthcoming album Tenderfoot, out January 6th. It's a bouncing, twangy pop-rock tune with the longings and explorations of adolescence pumping through its veins.

Reese says of the song: "The lyrics in 'Airshow' were inspired by a World War II re-enactment in my hometown every year and a Rainer Maria Rilke quote that I heard the songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard say to the audience - 'Our fears are like dragons guarding our most precious treasures.'

The narrator is probably in her late teens, and the story is about being that age in a county fair or carnival setting and looking for trouble. The music, like the narrator's night, has highs and lows. But I wanted the end of the song to feel like taking off in a rocket ship underneath that final line, 'Fears are dragons, fears are M-16's.'

Enjoy!

Album Review: Shooter Jennings - Countach

Shooter Jennings - Countach
A Review by Robert Dean

One thing you can count on when it comes to Shooter Jennings is the dude does not give a fuck what you think. When everyone wanted him to do one thing, he does the complete opposite. Someone says “career suicide” and guess what? The dude will ride straight into that storm with both fingers raised.

How else could he have had the guts to record his masterpiece Black Ribbons when everyone wanted a Waylon copy? Sure, why not release a concept album that has more in common with Clutch than whatever’s playing on country radio. Shooter’s next move? Just when everyone thinks he’s gone and left them for Mars, he drops Family Man – a traditional country record that was razor sharp, and able to put folks in their place with one swoop. And with both of these choices, he was about to cement his ability to morph into anything he wants to be; that’s the power of Shooter Jennings. Let’s not get lost in forgetting The Other Life, either. It’s also so overwhelming to think about in one musical palette, but it all belongs to one man.

On Shooter’s newest record, Countach, no one could have predicted what would come next. A dizzying array of textures and sonic landscapes, Countach is a schizophrenic look into a mind that’s overflowing with musical ideas and too stubborn to stick to one thing. Countach shouldn’t work, but it does. The sounds land because the record doesn’t feel like a collection of songs (see: Black Ribbons) but an overall vision. The mood drops and swells, always daring the listener to see where they’re willing to go next.

For god’s sake, the record is a synth pop meets country, disco funk party that has cameos by the late, great Steve Young and Marilyn Manson. Putting it in a category is the impossible task not fit for any human. Some moments feel appropriate for an 80’s love scene ala Miami Vice while others speak at the darkest recesses of what we think Shooter is. Who else is capable of mixing pedal steel with pop-heavy synths?

Countach isn’t for the traditionalists, and it’s not for someone who’s expecting a return to whatever preconceived form you think Shooter Jennings needs to adhere to. There is no form. There is only what he chooses to pursue.

 Oddly, I feel this Bruce Lee quote best describes Shooter Jennings musical vision:

 “Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”

 If this quote means something to you in how you feel about music, buy Countach – you’ll be better for it and grasp its vision. 

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Countach is available at BCR Media, iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, etc.

Brandi Carlile, Punch Brothers, etc Perform "Lovesick Blues"

YouTube Gems: Brandi Carlile - The Eye

From her 2015 album, The Firewatcher's Daughter, here's Brandi Carlile with the video for "The Eye."