Happy New Year and What to Look for in 2011

Happy New Year folks.  2011 is looking good for our type of music.  Just check out some of these upcoming releases I'm looking forward to.


The Only Sons - American Stranger
Murfreesboro's rock and rollers are gonna hit a homerun with this one.  Their last album was really good (check out their site to get it for free), this one might be better.

Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots
The songs I've heard from this one already put it way ahead of last year's The Big To-Do.  Let's hope that it is.

Hayes Carll - KMAG YOYO (& Other American Stories)
I don't think Hayes could make a bad album if he tried. 

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit - Untitled as of yet
I'm really looking forward to hearing how Jason follows up the masterpiece that was 2009's self-titled release.  I've heard some live versions of a couple tunes and they sound promising.


Slithering Beast - Delicious EP
Should be out in the first part of the year, and will probably have a little more rock and roll flavor than the last two albums.  That's a good thing based on the recent live shows I've seen.

Kelsey Waldon - Untitled as of yet
I really like Kelsey's 2010 country release.  This one is supposed to lean a little more towards the rock side of things and even have a Neil Young cover on it.





Also, I added a "The Free Stuff" link in the upper right hand corner of the main page.  Check there for free albums or EP's.  I don't post everything I find that is free, just the good stuff.  So if it is listed, it is worth downloading.  Let me know if links are down or you have something you think I should add to the list.

I'm probably forgetting a few as well.  Most of these I've listed should be out in the first couple months too. 

Drive-By Truckers on 91.9 WFPK's Live Lunch

A few weeks late, but still worth mentioning.  The Drive-By Truckers played 91.9 WFPK's Live Lunch series before their show in Louisville last month.  You can also download a free track if you are a fan of DBT on Facebook.

Musick Party @ the Morgan's

I've been meaning to post about this for a while now. It's one my favorite things I've found anywhere and it comes from the excellent Southern Shelter. The recording is a couple years old, taking place right before Adam & Wendy Musick of Southern Bitch left Athens. This is a very informal jam session/going-away party at Brad Morgan's (of Drive-By Truckers). Some others showing up to jam/sing include Patterson Hood (DBT), John C. Stubblefield (Lucero), and Don Chambers. The whole set is great with plenty of originals and choice covers. Check a couple of my favorites out below and get the whole set from Sloan here. Highly recommended!

"My Kind of Country" - Adam Musick
"Rock Salt and Nails" - Adam Musick

Another Free Drive-By Truckers Track

Head over to the website and sign up for the email list and you'll get a link for a free download of "Birthday Boy" from the new album The Big To-Do. My favorite lyric so far: "Let Miss Trixie sit up front, let her wipe your nose." Also note that the Truckers are playing Buster's in Lexington on April 10th with Langhorne Slim opening.

Drive-By Truckers:The Big To-Do (Live)

The Drive-By Truckers' The Big To-Do is less than two months from release. They have been playing the new tracks at the live shows lately, but sadly they don't have any dates in the Louisville area before the release. Thankfully, Sloan Simpson over at Southern Shelter recorded DBT's recent three night stand at the 40 Watt in Athens, Georgia. You can download all three nights concerts, along with a lot of other good music, for free at his site. I pulled out the tracks from the new album and zipped them up so I can listen until the studio album gets here. I'll share them here, but it is no way meant as a replacement for the official release. Also one track from the album wasn't played on any night, so you'll have to wait to hear that. Oh yeah, Stereogum does have an album version of one of the songs you can download. The new album isn't listed in the DBT store yet, but go ahead and check out all their other releases and merch.


New DBT Tracks (13 Tracks, 131 MB)

In My Basement Room's Top 5 of 2009

Here are my favorite albums of 2009 based entirely on the amount of time I spent listening to each one. Granted, there were a lot of albums I did not buy. It was easy to pick my number one. It was far and away better than anything else this year. Numbers two through five could have been in any order; I just picked a sequence and went. They all received a lot of play.

1. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Self Titled - Lightning Rod Records

2. Lucero - 1372 Overton Park - Universal Republic

3. Drive-By Truckers - The Fine Print - New West Records

4. Ben Nichols - The Last Pale Light in the West - Rebel Group Records

5. Chris Knight - Trailer II - Drifter's Church Productions

DBT - "The Big To-Do"

So it has been a month since my last post. Might as well get back into things with a quick update. I got the following in my email today:

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS SIGN TO ATO RECORDS, RELEASE NEW ALBUM

“Drive-By Truckers are the best rock band in America.” CNN.com

New York, NY—ATO Records is pleased to announce the signing of Drive-By Truckers and their label debut, The Big To-Do. The album, which will be the band’s tenth in their thirteen-year career, is scheduled to be released March 16, 2010. The Big To-Do features thirteen new tracks from the Drive-By Truckers and was produced by their long time producer, David Barbe (Sugar, Bettye LaVette). “It’s very much a rock album,” says Patterson Hood of the Trucker’s upcoming release. “Very melodic and more rocking than anything we’ve done since disc 2 of Southern Rock Opera.”

The inspiration for The Big To-Do came to the band during their time on the road. “We’ve often set our songs and albums in different periods of time, but this one finds us directly in our present. Riding all through the highways of America (and Europe) trying to make sense of a very different world than the one we grew up in,” says Hood. “I don’t write a lot of songs on the road, but I did more than usual on this album and many more were inspired by or set there, either in a literal sense or something I witnessed or heard about while I was out there.”

Hood and Mike Cooley continue to be the chief songwriters of the group, continuing a musical partnership that has lasted over twenty-three years. Bassist, Shonna Tucker, flexes her songwriting muscles once again by contributing two original songs to the album. Brad Morgan (drums), John Neff (guitar/pedal steel) and Jay Gonzalez (keyboards) round out the current Drive-By Truckers lineup.

The band recently backed legendary R&B musician, Booker T. Jones, on his critically acclaimed, Grammy-nominated album, Potato Hole. The album is nominated for Best Pop Instrumental Album and Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

The Drive-By Truckers will be hitting the road at the beginning of the new year. A full tour supporting The Big To-Do will be announced in early 2010.

The Big To-Do Track Listing:
1. Daddy Learned to Fly
2. The Fourth Night of My Drinking
3. Birthday Boy
4. Drag the Lake Charlie
5. The Wig He Made Her Wear
6. You Got Another
7. This Fucking Job
8. Get Downtown
9. After the Scene Dies
10. (It’s Gonna Be) I Told You So
11. Santa Fe
12. The Flying Wallendas
13. Eyes Like Glue
14. Girls Who Smoke (Bonus track – vinyl only)

Drive-By Truckers on tour:
1/28 Huntsville, AL Crossroads Music Hall
1/29 Mobile, AL Soul Kitchen
1/30 Tuscaloosa, AL Jupiter Bar & Grill
2/11 Greenville, SC Handlebar
2/12 Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre
2/13 Raleigh, NC Lincoln Theatre
2/14 Knoxville, TN Bijou Theatre
2/25 Charlotte, NC Neighborhood Theatre
2/26 Charlottesville, VA Jefferson Theatre
2/27 Charlottesville, VA Jefferson Theatre

Photo taken by Erika Goldring on Halloween at Voodoo Fest in New Orleans 2009.
LtoR: Jay Gonzalez, Brad Morgan, Patterson Hood, Shonna Tucker, Mike Cooley, John Neff

For more information contact: Traci Thomas / Thirty Tigers / 615-664-1167 / traci@thirtytigers.com

Live Music Archive Gems: DBT at Cooley's House

This is the first in what will be a regular feature called Live Music Archive Gems. If you don't know, the Live Music Archive is continually growing collection of live music recordings available for free. Most can be streamed or downloaded as either mp3 or lossless audio. There is a ton of great music to be had. In these recurring posts I will sort through the junk and post the gems.
For the first post I have selected my favorite download from the archive. It is an intimate acoustic recording of the Drive-By Truckers from 12-29-2003 jamming/practicing at Mike Cooley's house. Listen to the download from start to finish and you will hear chatter of friends, bottles being passed around, and jokes being told.
I've posted one song from each of the songwriters (at the time). You can go here to download the whole recording or individual tracks as mp3 or lossless files. There is also a text file with notes such as set list, recording lineage, and taper. Thanks a lot to Chris Pennington.

Company I Keep

Love Like This

Decoration Day

Mike Cooley (of Drive-By Truckers)

One of my reasons for starting this blog is to introduce music that may not get noticed enough. Today I am featuring Mike Cooley, singer/songwriter/guitarist for the Drive-By Truckers. The tunes come from a solo live show a few years back that you can find over at Southern Shelter. While you're there check out some of the great music that taper and archiver Sloan Simpson has up.
The solo set is one of my favorite live shows I have. Mike plays most all of his DBT favorites, but also plays some unrealeased tunes that are just great.
"Pulaski, TN" needs to be recorded and released as soon as possible. Who knows, maybe it will show up on the next DBT record.

Pulaski, TN - Mike Cooley

"Women Without Whiskey" is one of DBT's best songs and it holds pretty dang well as a solo acoustic piece.

Women Without Whiskey - Mike Cooley