The Gobblers Knob

I haven’t yet made my final decision, but I am getting more and more weary of the ever expanding and diversifying stable of useless labels being attached to my favorite music.  We can’t call a ton of Rockin’ Country bands from Texas simply by the title of “Country” since it doesn’t sound like what’s on the radio, even though I have a hard time hearing an Aaron Watson, Jason Boland or Jackson Taylor Band song and thinking it’s anything more or less than “Country“.  Of course these days, the term “Red Dirt” gets thrown around or abused by anyone that decides they’re not good enough for their music to ever travel north of Eskimo Joe’s. I love Cross Canadian, Stoney LaRue, Boland, Reckless Kelly, Wade Bowen, Randy Rogers and all of the other torch-bearers for “Red Dirt,” but can we just stop, please? It isn’t worth the effort and it really defeats the purpose, in my mind, of truly bucking the system that it claims to be the alternative of.  Back in the 70′s, Willie, Waylon and the Boys took over Austin and helped usher in a new era of Country Music that simply wasn’t available to the masses at that point in time.  That isn’t the case in the new millennium.  We haters of Country Top 40 radio have dozens of options that were merely notions in Science-Fiction novels when Willie first started braiding his fiery mane.  Myspace (the internet in general really), Itunes and Satellite Radio have filled the void that I claim wasn’t near as large as it was when The Outlaws album became a history maker, as the first Country album to go platinum. I do believe that using the term “Texas Music” is sometimes necessary, as such bands are often harder to categorize and would take a bunch of slashes (country/rock/folk/blues/tejano/screamo) to define their sound, and let’s face it, you can label Doug Sahm a million different things, to simply call his work ”Country” would totally miss the point, and I get that too.  Ultimately, I am going to stop using pointless labels and when I refer to a band as a “Texas Band,” it just means they are from Texas.

• If you live outside  The Lone Star State, please click on Radio Free Texas and if you can listen at work like me, you’ll have received a crash course in many well-known and not quite-known bands that truly define what our state offers musically.

• It’s been a while since I gushed over one of my favorite local heroes, the Mo Robson Band.  They have been branching out and are gigging all over the state, with a show next weekend opening for the great Dale Watson.  There are also plans for a Live CD to record soon.  You can request them at the above link for Radio Free Texas too…

• The Texas/Red Dirt Blog has a pretty cool contest going on for folks that really want to enjoy the up and comers in our great state.  The Texas Music Awards have historically showcased big names and great talent!

Casey Donahew Band:

The Mother Truckers: