Sons of Bill "Santa Ana Winds"

It is Monday. The weekend is over, and it is finally quiet again. One of my neighbors has taken to playing his bass LOUD, loud enough that the frequencies rumble through the concrete slabs and into the house. It is a bit unnerving having this incessant amplitude that is being delivered hour after hour (just ask Noriega). But today, the vibrations have stopped. I live in Austin, it comes with the turf. (Insert your favorite "How Many Austin Musicians Does It Take..." joke here.) But you have to practice to get anywhere, you know about the 10 years or 10,000 hours rule to become an expert? 

Sons of Bill have been plying their craft. The are on a tear around the country, traveling intrepidly from stage to stage, from state to state. In the midst of the march, they are just completing work on the third CD, the follow up to the aptly named One Town Away album. In the studio with them producing is David Lowery - yes, of Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven fame , THAT David Lowery. We are looking for this as yet unnamed CD to be a spring release. A couple of months back, we got our hands on a smoking video of one of the songs from the forthcoming album, "Santa Ana Winds." When Sons of Bill stopped by our studio at the Steamboat Grand in January during The MusicFest, they gave us a sweet acoustic version of it. So exciting to watch James, Sam, and Abe Wilson just get better and better!

- Jessie Scott

Update on 2011-11-05 03:06 by Music Fog

The Music Fog version of this song is now available to download at either of the stores below:

Nick Lowe "I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)"

Wow, what a week, as we are finally thawing out here in Texas. It is not normal to have 70 hours in a row below freezing in this state, with snow, ice, and what have you. As the world has been trying to get to Dallas for the Super Bowl®, the cancelled flights and hazardous roads have certainly not helped. But here is it Super Bowl Sunday; I love it, well in a bittersweet way, as it heralds the end of the football season. Sniff.

But let's celebrate the day, the food, the fun, the football (and the commercials!). And here's hoping it's a competitive game. These are two legacy teams named for their respective towns' industries, two cities that have built a shrine to their football teams. I lived in Pittsburgh during the Terry Bradshaw and Steel Curtain days of Super Bowl supremacy. Not that I am taking sides. (Well maybe just a little!)

I have been looking for a suitable cutesy tie-in for a video, I was thinking Dallas by Jimmie Dale Gilmore or the Flatlanders or Joe Ely, and then I went looking for the original version of The Gambler by Don Schlitz who penned it. After hours spent surfing and listening, I gave up. Well, actually, what really happened is I got a press release about Rockpile, referencing both Labour of Lust by Nick Lowe, and Dave Edmunds Repeat When Necessary. And if you have a bit of time, there is a very cool 12 part 'telling of the tale' for you to explore called Born Fighters 1979. Down the rabbit hole you go.

On March 15, Labour of Lust will be reissued on vinyl, CD and digitally. Hard to believe that the album has been out of print for over 20 years!

So today's video is a classic, and it has nothing to do with Super Bowl Sunday. And it's not from the Labour of Lust album, either. That said, it WOULD be fun to have this tune added to the in-stadium playlists around the country, if for no other reason than that everyone could stand up in unison and boogie (a sure photo op!). "I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock & Roll," which you can find on Quiet Please: The New Best of Nick Lowe, that came out about two years ago.

- Jessie Scott

Brandon Jenkins "The Perfect Slave"

I scratch my head sometimes in wonder as to why the pecking order is what it is. It mystifies me why some artists have not yet connected with a larger audience, when I know that audience would relate to their music if only they knew it existed. So it is with Brandon Jenkins. His is an iconic image, appearing as an imposing figure; bald, bearded, tattooed. He is an everyman, a sensitive rough guy, a poet inhabiting a dockworker's frame. He is a gentle giant, a steely voice writing acerbic social commentary. When I watch him, I yearn for the day when he will be regarded as the important generational voice that he is. It makes me crazy more people don't know about him!

Brandon Jenkins comes from the Red Dirt. He brought the song craft, the tradition, and the attention to detail with him when he moved to Austin. It is steeped in his soul. The soil here nurtures him though, as do all his ex-pat brethren, be they Oklahoman, Texan, or kindred spirits that the wind blew this way. He is quite frankly political. A populist. This song, "Perfect Slave" will be on his next CD, set for release this April. We filmed him during MusicFest 2011 in Steamboat Springs just a few weeks ago, in what I think was his first time recording this song acoustically.

- Jessie Scott