If you’re looking for an act that is still virtually unknown, one that is buried deep in the underground and that embodies the raw energy of the roots movement and not just a commercially-viable watered-down derivative, one whose active ingredient still works on even the most hardened of roots addicts, then Jayke Orvis and The Broken Band might be your drug.
The Farmageddon Records family suffered a grave loss last week when Richard Laferte II unexpectedly passed away Saturday, January 5th while visiting family and friends in Maine. Following a formal time of remembrance, the gathering turned to celebrating Richard’s life through music. The celebration included the reunification of 3 original members of the .357 String Band, Jayke Orvis, Derek Dunn, and Joseph Huber.
Old World’s Ocean puts The Calamity Cubes’ bevy of talents on glorious display. Excellent songwriting is conveyed through flawless vocal performances and inventive music. They say to make it in music today you need a distinct voice, and The Calamity Cubes have two of them; the deep, brooding baritone of Brook Blanche, and the whimsical, character-filled sighs of Joey Henry.
Not everybody will be able to make the trek to The Farmageddon Music Festival going down on July 20th-22nd in West Yellowstone, Montana at Hebgen Lake. But if you’re sitting on the fence, hemming and hawing, sweating because you only have two days left before you have to ask off for that extra day of work, here’s 12 random reasons to pull the trigger.
Farmageddon Records, home to such roots acts as Rachel Brooke, Jayke Orvis, and The Goddamn Gallows, has announced they’re throwing a full-scale, 3 day festival this summer, July 20-22, just outside of scenic West Yellowstone, Montana, behind the Longhorn Saloon on Hebgen Lake.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s .357 String Band, one of the stalwarts and one of the first full-time bands in the underground country movement, has decided to call it quits. Their high-octane “streetgrass” approach to traditional bluegrass music made them one of the top-tier live and recorded acts in all of underground country, and afforded them a big following in Europe as well.
The first song on the “Ray Lawrence Jr.” track from Hank3’s Ghost to a Ghost is “When You Lose All You Have.” They say to write it, you have to live it, and Ray wrote the song while living in a Phoenix homeless shelter. A truck driver and a divorcee, Ray had reached the end of his rope in 2008, and penned the song as a self-portrait.
Rachel Brooke’s new album Down In The Barnyard has been creating a lot of buzz lately, and on Wednesday she talked with Jashie P of Outlaw Radio Chicago about the album, her upcoming tour with Those Poor Bastards, a proposed 7-inch release on Farmageddon Records, and how Shooter Jennings is helping her with his “XXX” movement.
I know I didn’t make a list of candidates for some stupid “Artist of the Year” like I did for Album of the Year or Song of the Year for 2010. I know I didn’t even announce that there would be an Artist of the year for 2010, and up until a few days ago, the idea of doing it didn’t even cross my mind. But that is what is great about having your own website, you can do whatever the hell you want.
As anti-Nashville and neo-traditionalist music was finding support in a grassroots audience on MySpace, many new bands and artists were beginning to jump on this bandwagon. I had heard of some of these new bands before, but when I went onto this Section 08 MySpace site, that is when it dawned on me, that there was massive movement of music brewing that had not been there a few years before.
Following is my list for the essential albums for 2010, broken down into a few of categories.This is meant to compliment the Album of the Year candidates in this super-packed year for stellar music. Hopefully next year, Saving Country Music can branch out a bit and cover the more traditional mainstream acts, but it will always be on top of the smaller acts trying to get their music out there, not instead of them.
When maestro mandolin player and songwriter Jayke Orvis left the .357 String Band, some heavy metal transplants were screeching that he took all of their grittiness, guts, and anger with him. Taking that theory to its natural conclusion, I guess a few were expecting his solo project to be some sort of bloodletting ritual that […]
Jayke “Goddamn” Orivs, (a name I coined, thank you very much) formerly of the .357 String Band and now of The Goddamn Gallows, has finally set a hard and fast release date of June 29th for his solo project called It’s All Been Said. Originally there had been some chatter about it being released in […]
On this weeks edition of Outlaw Radio the guest is going to be Jayke Orvis, former member of the .357 String Band and current member of the Goddamn Gallows. The timing is fortuitous, because it has just been announced that Jayke is in the middle of recording a solo album, and the list of pickers […]