The Eye of the Hurricane

Jason Eady – Wishful Drinking

Country music is not dead…. it’s alive and well in Jason Eady’s soul. The latest addition to his nightly setlist is a true country song about drinking and the memory of a woman. And let’s be honest, the first thought that should pop in your head when you read that last sentence should be “Can there really be any more good songs about drinking… haven’t they all been written?”

Well.. I would have thought so until I heard this one. The song title alone begs you to wonder.. Is this another cheesy drinking song? But, two verses in and you already know there’s something powerful to this song. Take a listen and see for yourself… I think you’ll agree that this one could have been penned by one of the greats.

iPhone users click here to view the video

Screw Compromise

“I was never one for compromise…” Band of Heathens

It’s funny how, as writers & music lovers, we are usually deathly afraid to say something negative about someone or something. You just want to be loved by everyone and not stir things up, but the irony is that when speaking the truth you are generally more respected and liked by everyone.

My personal standpoint is that 95% of what you read here won’t be negative in nature because I would rather just spend my time writing about the things that I enjoy. I don’t write review’s because I’m too opinionated and honestly.. writing bad reviews just put me in a bad mood.. not to mention having to force myself to listen to bad music.

i have no problem saying what I believe and a few weeks ago I was confronted by a musician for a view I publicly stated about him and agreeing with another bad review that was written about him. Sure I had to deal with the awkwardness… but I don’t care. I believe in what I believe and try my hardest to not be an ass about it. So I just smiled, shook his hand and said I’m sorry but I just don’t enjoy your music. More people should tell him that. Really.

There’s lots of people standing up for what they believe in these days. From Conan O’Brien to our local paper The Houston Press… and even to the people that just love to write about music. It’s both refreshing and much needed. More of you need to do it.

In today’s culture, we are taught not to hate, but somewhere along the lines we’ve watered down that message to one that instead teaches us not to upset others. I mean… really… I don’t HATE you because your music is bad. But I do think some “musicians” might want to give insurance sales a try.

And with that, I’ll be done, because what started as a 100 character tweet quickly steamrolled into a 350 word rant. I’m off to listen to “Something To Believe In” by Poison.

Just kidding… It’ll be “LA County Blues” by Band Of Heathens for the rest of today.

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Steamboat Part 1 – Breaking The Viewfinder

So far my pact with myself to not take a million pictures and videos is holding up fairly well. I wanted to see MusicFest in a different way and be able to write more here. Sort of a test to see if it changes anything for me to not try to do everything at once. I really think it has… but don’t worry, I’m seeing plenty of pictures being taken (some by very awesome talent) and I’ll try to link to as much stuff as I can.

Probably one of my favorite things about this festival is the first day/night of no music. The longer I’m here, the more people I’ve met… so it’s a gauntlet of hugs and handshakes from not just people from Texas but also, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Illinois, Arkansas, New York, Colorado, Washington DC… the list goes on and on. I’ve explained it before, that its like a big family reunion and even this year it still has that feel to it. We all went the The Grand Ballroom and watched the football game on the bigscreen, drank some beers (or some Titos) and laughed and joked till almost the next morning.

There was even a bet placed as to who would arrive first… Galleywinter or MusicFog. Which we lost by mere minutes to a loaded down Celebrity Coach Bus… How does that even happen? I’m claiming it was our caravan of cars and the beautiful drive into Steamboat that slowed of down. Oh well… I’ll be delivering that bottle of Tito’s to them this week. Things could be worse.

Moving into Day 1 of music had me thrown for a loop. This was probably one of the best opening days of music I’ve seen. When it was all said and done, I had stood in front of a stage for 9 hours listening to music and enjoying some of my favorite bands (both old and new.)

The day started and ended for us at The Grand Ballroom. The “First Note” started at 2:00pm and featured a 2 set song swap that was very reminiscent of the lineups/chemistry of years past. First up was Jamie Wilson, Liz Foster, Bonnie Bishop and a rotating seat of Tina Wilkins, Kathleen Braun & Kelley Mickwee. It was an interesting set, being all girls… and not one I would have picked me liking. But I love Jamie Wilson and Liz Foster, so I went to see them and was completely blown away at and talent. And based on what I was hearing around me.. so was everyone else.

Next up was Willy Braun, Cody Canada, Robert Earl Keen & Charlie Robison. I really don’t need to go into detail about the how good these 4 guys are, their reputation speaks for itself. Highlights of the songs for me were “Dreadful Selfish Crime”, “Brooklyn Kid”, “Wicked Twisted Road” & “My Hoemtown”. But the glue that held these guys together on stage was the banter back and forth like they were brothers at a dinner table. Some of the quotes just killed me!

I always get out-hatted by Robert Earl ~Charlie Robison

So this is our show and these two guys are just our guests ~REK to Cody

Great, I get to follow Dreadful Selfish Crime. Thanks. ~Charlie Robison

After a quick 30 minute run to the condo for dinner we were back at The Grand for Hayes Carll (or Hayes Carol as we heard him being called), Kevin Welch backed by Reckless Kelly (and The Heathens and The Trishas) and The Band Of Heathens. This whole set was a cross section of everything MusicFest is to me. It had Hayes, a long time favorite… It had Kevin Welch, brand new to his music… It had The Band of Heathens, long time fan but new infatuation. Every set was right on point, but for me, The Band of Heathens we’re right in the groove and had me fist pumping higher than anyone else in the crowd. I even pulled my sleeves up so my anchor tats would give more weight to my fist pump. I may be partial, but I think I was their biggest fan in that room.

9 hours of music later, I spiraled down off my high and fell promptly asleep on our couch. I missed the late night activities, but hey.. at least I’m the first one up with inspiration and something to write. Here’s a few blogs and pics that I’ve run across that are updating… I’ll post more when I see them

Fuelin’ Roadie
MusicFog
Todd Purifoy’s Posterous
And always.. follow along the tweets & twitpics at: TheMusicFest/attendees

Steamboat – Plans for 2010

Leading into this year I’ve given alot of thought of how I want to cover The MusicFest in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Typically I’ve done a day by day rundown with videos, writeups and twitter feeds. Not alot of that will change, for the most part… except this year it will be a bit more unstructured.

There’s more folks than ever that are going to show up and blog and film and take photos, so I don’t feel like the burden lays squarely on my shoulders to report every single detail. My friends over at Music Fog are bringing the kitchen sink again this year so I expect great things from their reporting. And who knows.. maybe I’ll talk them into another interview!

My hope is to get more involved with the goings on and really write about things that are standout… which may or may not be every single day. There is a lot of fun to be had and I think between everyone there we’ll all have it covered.

So what about the twitter feed from people at Steamboat like I did last year? Twitter got smart and caught up with me (I guess) and implemented a similar feature right on their site. You can follow the List: TheMusicFest/attendees and get the updates right to your feed (at least that’s my understanding.. still seems buggy) Pretty freaking cool and I’ll be adding more people that tweeting from there as I see them.

I’ll be twittering from:
@ryanhargrave (personal thoughts)
@galleywinter (general music coverage)
@TheMusicFest (official MusicFest account)

Follow everyone at: @TheMusicFest/attendees

Here we go!!!

2009 – A year of margin

I’ve been thinking alot about what to write as my big “year end blog post” that seems to be what you do when you’re a blogger. And being that I’m a writer on music I should naturally give my summary of things that musically influenced me over the year. But really… that seems to be an awful lot about “me”. Especially when you can just peruse the archives and see all that makes my heart tick.

I was recently asked to describe my 2009 in a single word and I replied back quickly with “Focus”. After giving it some thought, I think that focus just sounded cool and was really just a close second to what I really learned… Margin.

When we write papers and notes we rarely write edge to edge. We were trained to leave a little margin in case we had to come back and make notes, change it or add in something better. 2009 was the year I began saying “No” to a lot of things and being OK where I am in certain places so that I could have more space in my life. I was way too busy and began to slowly find this margin in my time, my money, my marriage, my hobbies, etc…

As a result, I found something amazing. I was able to say “yes” to going on a few more roadtrips to see new bands. I was able to say “yes” to spending a bit more on occasion to go the extra miles. I was able to listen to more music and not feel like I was wasting time. I was able to try my hand at shooting films, which is something I’ve wanted to do but never found time for it. But most of all I was able to love more… love my wife and son more, love my friends better & love music/culture in different ways.

Margin. It’s a good thing to have. It’s hard to get.. but sooo worth it. Take a second and comment with the one word that describes your 2009. I’ll randomly pick someone to give the book below that is really good.

If you’re into it, a few resources I used on my journey were:
– Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time
- Inbox Zero
- Appigo ToDo iPhone app (or really any ToDo List)
- Dave Ramsey we don’t do the full blown thing but budget was key

Advent Conspiracy – What Is it?

This started out as a tweet but ended in a short blog post because I think a little more than 140 characters should be said about it, even if it’s not music related. With Advent being the season leading up to the birth of Christ, it’s traditionally a time that we think about giving and celebration. So with that, here’s the best quote I could find that sums up Advent Conspiracy really well,

What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.

And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?

Welcome to Advent Conspiracy.

This year we have already fought the malls for our gifts, but in lieu of an extravagant Christmas, our family has decided to take part in the Advent Conspiracy and give money to Living Water International… a group that drills clean water wells for those that die of unclean water daily. Check out this video that was just posted 3 days ago of a village that got clean water for Christmas this year. It’s pretty cool and there is more info on the video page itself.

The soul of music heard through the homeless

So the story goes that Daniel Mustard, who is homeless, came on a radio show and said he could play guitar. They handed him one and he proceeds to sing Creep by Radiohead with enough soul and grit to make you feel the song instead of just hearing it. Very moving and heartfelt.

Thanks to Ryan Detzel (@DetzelPretzel) for cluing me in.