[Tonight I’ve got a couple of new songs for you and a couple of older ones. It’s midnight, I’ve been on the road, driving the highway. Just thinking about music, listening to it, holding the wheel. Here are a few songs that have been driving my day. Any songs been driving yours?]
I love driving at night in the summer. I can feel the interstate stretching from here to the ocean. The interstate has a rhythm. You signal, you pass, one, two, you signal, you return, three, four. Try counting the broken white lines in sixteens and thirty-twos. The guardrail posts every eight beats. The windows are rolled down with that sticky air that feels cool only because it’s moving at 70 mph. Your light is the stereo, the instrumental panel, and on occassions the moon or the headlights of the car behind you. Sometimes that when the songs sound the best.
[After the break I’ve included a few songs heard and a few that would have fit in nicely, while taking a late night drive, heading east on I-64] »Read More
This weekend I was at a party, and I met John Pringle. He just moved to Charlottesville from Atlanta and is looking to put together a band. He was looking for my help in that department, and I’m passing it along to you. Attention drummers and keyboards players. Here’s you shot to hop on with a potentially big star.
He gave me his cd entitled “Midnight Mass on the Williamsburg Bridge” to listen to that he recorded with his last band in Atlanta. I had it on in my truck all weekend and delightfully impressed. It reminds me a lot of Ryan Adams. The music is soulful, the lyrics are well thought-out, and all instruments are well produced. Watch out for this guy. You’ll see him again. If you are familiar with him, let us know what you think.
I wanted to have a little place on cvilleMUSE where we could post longer features, essays about music, and album reviews from a wide range of artists. A Sunday feature seemed like a great place to do this. Consider it the “Arts & Style” section from your favorite Sunday newspaper. A little something more for the music fan who likes to read the long form record reviews, maybe still spins an LP or two, and tackles the crossword puzzle every Sunday morning.
Back in 2003 I first discovered a great four piece bluegrass band out of North Carolina called Chatham County Line. They performed around a single microphone in the style that Bill Monroe first established as the standard decades ago, yet brought an energy to acoustic music that drew as much from rock n roll as it did from bluegrass. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing them perform a number of times since my initial discovery of their music and I consider them one of my favorite acoustic bands performing today. Well CCL has just released a brand new record and it’s their finest effort to date. The new album from Chatham County Line is called IV and the review for the record can be found by reading more:
Let’s face it. We’re all really music nerds, music lovers, or a pleasant combination of both. Unfortunately there’s so much music out there you can’t possibly keep up with it all. That’s one of the reasons we’ve created this little slice of cyberspace: To give the Charlottesville community a place to share, listen, and enjoy music.
Which leads me to this: What song/artist/album is currently bouncing pleasantly around your noggin? What new tune have you recently discovered that you just can’t get enough of? Who should we check out? I’m curious.
Here’s my latest personal discovery. I just came across this yesterday. Maybe I’m way behind, but it’s all new to me.
