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In the spirit of complete disclosure and unrepentant bias, I must admit to being an unabashed Trent Wagler fan.
Adrienna Valentine, the 2009 release from Wagler and Jay Lapp, last year earned the distinction of being, at any given moment, the record most likely to be found in my CD player and it was, by [...]

Trent Wagler Tours on Two Wheels
Take a look at Trent Wagler’s tour schedule and you can see that the talented Virginia-based singer-songwriter is going to be spending a lot of time in the van. In this energy-conscious age, that translates to a lot of carbon emissions. Inspired to lessen his footprint, Wagler and band [...]

Ray Wylie Hubbard is a true Texas bad ass. His voice growls like a diesel engine that’s been on the road a few hundred miles too long. He sounds like he snacks on gravel and chases it with kerosene cocktails. And his songwriting reflects the brutal honesty found in his voice. The songs on his [...]

Feral Fire marks the sixth album release from Murfreesboro rockers Glossary. There is an authentic garage band spirit to Glossary, and the band plays with a gritty honesty that comes from over a decade making great, under-the-radar rock and roll music on its own terms.
For Fans Of
Drive-by Truckers, Bloodkin, Lucero

Prime Cut
“The Sweet Forever” – [...]

The Buzz:
Nathan Blake Lynn spent four years tearing up the road with jamgrass genre-benders Bawn in the Mash. Now traveling solo, Lynn’s songs are returning to a simpler fashion, built by just a man and his guitar. His latest writing reflects his recent residence on the banks of the Mississippi River, where the spirits of [...]

The Avett Brothers
I & Love & You
The Avett Brothers took a jet plane to Malibu and cut their major-label debut with powerhouse producer Rick Rubin. The influence is immediately apparent. The band’s delicately ragged Appalachian-hued punk pop has been polished even further. With all of the hype behind their energetic, foot-stomping live shows, this album [...]

Halloween brings out the someone else in all of us. Each year, on the last day of October, donning your favorite assless chaps, fishnet stockings, or superhero costume – or maybe even all three at once – is absolutely hunky dory, and most folks won’t even give you a second glance.
The Halloween show offers a [...]

In a manner of speaking, Kevn Kinney’s musical career was down the drain. Having given up on music, Kinney was toiling in an Atlanta-area sewage plant, and it was only after being rescued from potential obscurity by local musician Tim Nielsen that Drivin N Cryin was born and Southern rock history was rewritten. Hailed as [...]

Dispel any notion that Patterson Hood’s new solo record, Murdering Oscar (and other love songs), will be the soundtrack for your next romantic rendezvous. The ominous opening chords of the title track – a tale of gun shots and salvation found at the altar of oneself – are classic Patterson Hood: foreboding, introspective, and most [...]

Bill Wilson has to be mighty proud of his boys. After their early 20 something wanderings took them all over the country, Wilson brothers James, Sam, and Abe returned to their native Charlottesville in 2005, formed Sons of Bill with friends Brian Caputo and Seth Green, and commenced to taking their country-tinged rock and roll [...]

The Buzz
The Corduroy Road is the latest band lobbying to add its name to Athens, Georgia’s musical legacy. Begun as a duo by Drew Carman and Dylan Solise in 2006, the group expanded to a quartet in early 2009 and now includes John Cable on drums and Elijah Neesmith on upright bass. An aggressive touring [...]

The Appalachian Mountains are one of the Earth’s oldest mountain chains—they once soared to heights of nearly 30,000 feet, and today they are home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. At the same time, the Appalachians—and the people who live therein—are threatened by misunderstanding, untruths, and industrial ravaging. This fractured relationship [...]

While their Southern rock peers Widespread Panic and Drive-by Truckers have gone on to achieve wider acclaim, Bloodkin has been the understated, and often overlooked, constant on the Athens, Georgia, rock and roll scene for the last twenty years. These purveyors of rustic rock, stewarded by the longtime friendship of Daniel Hutchins and Eric Carter, [...]

For me, whose fingers stumble clumsily across the neck my mandolin, Sarah Jarosz’s virtuosity is simultaneously laudable and damnable; her genius serves as both mighty inspiration and just cause for heaving my mandolin in frustration. Only seventeen, her genius is the stuff of dreams for we aging mortals. On her debut album, Song Up In [...]

Some 40-plus years into his career, Doyle Lawson has certainly gained entrance into the council of bluegrass elders. With Lonely Street, the 34th record with his band Quicksilver, Lawson continues to provide the purest of traditional bluegrass and the sweetest harmonies this side of an angel band. Those harmonies are the trademark of Doyle Lawson [...]