Zoe Muth & the Lost High Rollers "Hey Little Darlin'"

It takes me about the length of Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row” to drive home from the Saxon Pub. “They’re selling postcards of the hanging...” What we have come to accept as the norm for society is scary. It has gone so far passed the bonds that used to hold us tight, it boggles the mind. 'Snooki' and the 'Housewives' and the relentless celebration of bad behavior. And the politics of it all, as both left and right decry what we are becoming, while espousing the same aspirations. The irony is that both sides have different points of view, 180 different, but seemingly want to attain the same things. Now with the growing poverty, widespread uncertainty and relentless upheaval, it leaves one to wonder whether will we be a new generation of nomads in search of the future; hitchhiking, riding the rails, living in new-fangled communes, growing our own?

Photo Credit: Genevieve Pierson

Enter Zoe Muth & The Lost High Rollers from Washington state. They visited us during the Music Fog Marathon at Threadgill’s in March, whereupon they rocked sweet and cool. “Hey Little Darlin’” positions the unrequited outsider, set against a subtext of hard times. It is no wonder to me why Americana music is being embraced right now. It speaks to what is going on in our lives. Who needs to crawl into fantasy pop when it seems like everyone we know is suffering. Zoe Muth and the band are playing the Rhythm and Roots Reunion today and tomorrow. Lucky you if you're in Bristol, Tennessee. The original version of this song can be found on the debut self-titled album. Here is the Music Fog version.

- Jessie Scott

Jon Langford "Book of Your Life"

I spent the day trying to keep up with everything. The phone was ringing, things were tugging at my consciousness, I would remember that I needed to make some more iced tea, only to forget for several more hours while I tended to more stuff. It is good to be busy, but it is a bit nerve wracking at the same time. The numbers of windows I have open at any given time is a testament to not being able to immediately follow through. And the email just keeps coming. Today I decided that 7,000 were just too many, and I proceeded to carefully delete 1500. The minutia of life. But being in the thick of all this stuff is somehow comforting, not caring about the beginning, and not knowing of the end. Somewhere in the middle.

Jon Langford’s song today confronts the ‘exploding plastic inevitable,’ as Any Warhol put it in the 60s. The end. And will it be kind? Who knows. 9/11 a few days ago gave me pause to look back on this decade and see how much our lives have changed. Older, wiser, and maybe sadder too. Are we witnessing the decline of a great empire, or can we rally back, personally and as a nation? We hope you live long and prosper. Here is “Book Of Your Life” which Music Fog recorded with Jon Langford and Jim Elkington when they came to visit us at the Sheraton suite at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville last year about this time. It is a tune that can be found on last year's Old Devils album from Jon Langford & Skull Orchard. This year, there is a new Mekons project being released on September 27th, their 26th album! Jon Langford is BUSY.

- Jessie Scott

Tom Russell - Mesabi

Tom Russell is a national treasure, and an unsung hero, well comparatively, anyway. He has an erring knack for the noir. There is a touch of the pulp fiction detective in his persona, or maybe it is the hat. He lives in a literate world of words, which seem to ooze out of his pores. He continues to turn the bauble of the world over in his hands, looking at the soft white underbelly, the flashes of light, the perspectives that change when the perception shifts.

I am happy to report that Tom Russell has a new album out as of a week ago called Mesabi. It is named after the Minnesota iron range, where Bob Dylan, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor are from. This is Tom’s 26th album, and he co-produced it with keyboardist Barry Walsh. And they traveled; it was recorded in studios ranging from Tucson, to Texas, to Nashville and Los Angeles. Russell invited friends in for this excursion; Lucinda Williams, Van Dyke Parks, Sir Douglas Quintet keyboardist Augie Meyers and the band Calexico, Tom collaborated with them on his last album, Blood and Candle Smoke, too.

Tom Russell goes on an extensive tour next week, and here’s hoping he will be in a town near you. Oh, did I tell you that he is also a painter, whose work can be found at the Yard Dog on South Congress in Austin. Why do I get the feeling that he never sleeps! Click here to listen to a “video” containing the audio for the title song, “Mesabi” which has a bit of his art for you to see...the album cover. And here is a video we found on the making of the new album

- Jessie Scott