'cause punk rock was too hard to sing

Like a million other people I've been kind of off-and-on with my relationship with Ryan Adams over the years. He was real cute when I was in high school and I got heavy into Heartbreaker, all the Whiskeytown stuff that came before. He knew his way around a broken heart and a harmonica. The Love Is Hell EPs. The Winona period. (c'mon now, who hasn't had a Winona phase?). Lots of concert bootlegs. He was prolific but there was always a diamond somewhere. The last record was rare 'cause it didn't have a single song that got me, but oh Ashes & Fire, we are back ON.

'bout five seconds after her heart begins to break

There are, oh, approximately 1 x million songs called Codeine but this is the one I can't stop listening to. The new single from Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit, and a real heartbreaker.

(free download here)

Further along the same road is the new(ish) one from Isbell's old outfit the Drive-By Truckers, Used To Be A Cop. It kind of sounds like a fever dream, dark and yearning and urgent underneath. In other words: perfect. 

you be Emmylou & I'll be Gram

Got to stalk the ghost of Gram Parsons by proxy on the weekend courtesy of the gorgeous Emmylou Harris and Sydney Festival First Night. I know Emmylou is a formidable talent in her own right, but lying in the grass and listening to her cover Wheels in the near-dark was a pretty heavenly end to Saturday.

yeah, and hell yeah too

Justin Townes Earle, who has really waltzed into my heart these last few months is out of rehab and back on tour. Which includes Australia! I'll die if I don't see him, no kidding.

what a lovely way to burn

new mixtape!

perfectly lethal

This guy comes on like a cross between tattooed rockabilly bad boy and Gram Parsons-style country crooner, a near perfect combination.

Sure he's currently in rehab but then country music, not to mention rock & roll in general has always been a haven for the beautifully fucked-up. If you can turn a good  story out of your heartbreak and hard living you're welcome. 

It's a hell of a name to live up to - Justin Townes Earle. And the thing is, he does.

(did I mention he does a great Replacements cover?)

strange powers