The Smithsonian Folklife Festival kicks off today, and Jerrry Williams, aka Swamp Dogg, is the guy to see. The man behind seminal 1970 soul/country/R&B/rock album Total Destruction To Your Mind (and 1971's Rat On!, infamous for its hilariously bad cover art, above), has kept it real for quite some time now; as Steve Kiviat writes [...]
These United States is a perpetual disappointment. Here is a band that has all the right ingredients for a good country-rock act—one foot in Washington, another in Kentucky; Jesse Elliott’s disinterested yowl; skilled musicians, and, lest we forget, blog buzz—and yet, this new album, and their last one, are absolutely yawn-inducing.
For the record: I am [...]
I’ve come to be untroubled in my seeking
And I’ve come to say that nothing is for naught
I’ve come to reach out blind, to reach forward and behind
For the more I seek, the more I’m sought
These lyrics, from Joe Pug’s “Hymn 101,” might as well be the tagline for Pug’s current year-long tour, which has taken [...]
