Here it is! Announcing the #E2TG 5th Anniversary Extravaganza Wednesday May 18 9pm at The 5 Spot. I am super stoked about this line-up! Julie Christensen with Sergio Webb and Chris Tench (of STONE CUPID), ADRIAN + MEREDITH, BARK (Tim and Susan Bauer Lee of Tim Lee 3), PATRICK KINSLEY & a Fistful of Dollars, and special guest THE FORESTERS! I hope many of you can join us that night. The anniversary show will be right after the 3rd installment of the R.B. Morris May Residency (which you do not want to miss).
Okay - a quick recap of some recent show... Friday: had a fun night at The 5 Spot for Tim Carroll Rock 'n' Roll Happy Hour and then moved to the Family Wash for the always amazing Jon Byrd opening for Mark Huff (for Huff's CD Release Show). Mark Huff sounded spectacular.
Yesterday, I got to help Lee (of "Earie" award winning Eight O'Five Jive celebrate her birthday, got to hang out with my friend, Too Much Country listening to the fine, fine music of Miss Shevaughn and Yuma Wray, and then headed over to The Basement East for the Merle Haggard tribute. This tribute featured some awesome performances (including E2TG favorites like Jon Latham and Jesse and Noah. Pretty much everyone of the bill killed it.
Happy Friday! Sue and I had our first Radio DJ training at WXNA, and I got to see the studio of the first time. When I know more about an on-air date, I will definitely be posting about that here.
I am excited to announce that the line-up for the E2TG Anniversary Extravaganza has been set. Look for the big reveal Monday morning (it may leaked sooner - so now would be a good time to double-check that you have "Liked" the Facebook Page. It is going to be a good one, so go ahead and mark May 18 as "busy" on your calendar.
Tonight my plans include hanging out at The 5 Spot for the Tim Carroll Rock and Roll Happy Hour and then making my way to The Family Wash for the Mark Huff CD Release show with Jon Byrd opening up. Good times...
Tomorrow is Record Store Day. Make your plans accordingly....
Here are some of the songs we are featuring on E2TG....
Hey ho! In case you missed it, I premiered the first video from Zachariah Red's album Backbone earlier today. Check it out!
Good times last night. MadDonna's hosted Jon Latham, Bill Eberle, and Chris Watts and his band. Pretty amazing night of Nashville music. Jon is playing some fairly new songs of late which are amazing, and Bill Eberle played some really, really new songs that were mind-blowingly good.
Why not go for the trifecta? Back in October, I had the great honor of premiering the song "40 Miles" - I had this to say:
"40 Miles" is pure Mid West, Blue Collar American Music. It drips with the blood sweat and tears of its characters and of its creator. This is not manufactured Country/Rock music - it is as real as it gets and it has been built brick by brick, and to that point, it is a brick in and of itself, and I for one cannot wait to see what Zachariah Red will build next.
Big things happening all around.... Record Story Day 2016, the recently announced Bob Dylan Birthday Tribute at the Ryman, the forthcoming line-up reveal for the E2TG Anniversary Extravaganza at The 5 Spot, and the just announced news that Double Shot with Joe & Sue, my forthcoming radio show with Sue Havlish on WXNA-FM has been moved to Saturday at 11:00a.m. and expanded by one hour!
We hope to have a start date announced soon, but we are both excited to have 2 hours each week to bring you a constant variety of music. See you on the radio!
Upcoming (as in tonight): Jesse Lafser is in the midst of a residency at The 5 Spot and that continues today with special guests Kevin Gordon and Lauren Shera. 6:00p.m. Later, Jon Latham, Bill Eberle, and Chris Watts (with a full-band) will be at MadDonna's Loft for what should be a pretty righteous night of music.
Meanwhile - it is the time of the week when we get wilder than usual at E2TG... I mean really crazy! I mean songs played in a random fashion kind of crazy... woah!
In the Fall of 2014, in the early days of a new chapter in my life, I got the opportunity to preview and review a new album by the Grey A - a band from Washington D.C. How that came about is one of those weird connection stories that seems to follow this blog and me around. Howard Rabach who was truly one of the first (if not the first) readers of Eat to the Ground contacted me to let me know that he had joined a new band, and that the band was about to put out an album.
To make the weird connections even weirder, My Country - the debut album by the Grey A was recorded just a few miles away from where I grew up and featured many Nashville-area musicians. I gladly agreed to review the album - even though I had only written a few album reviews.
My review appeared on this site and on No Depression on September 1, 2014. Since that time, the Grey A have expanded to a powerhouse four-piece and are poised to release the third single from My Country, "Unusual As Usual" b/w "Until They Find Us". The single features cover art by Maryland Visual Artist Chuck Rounds which was based upon a nude photograph of Grey Jacks - the mastermind behind the Grey A.
Here is how I described the song, when I reviewed the album: "Unusual as Usual" - Begins with thunderous bass/guitar line that runs counter to the previous tracks. This track’s insistent intensity drives a strong-minded message that seems to suggest blending in as a way of making real change from within a twisted and broken system. It's about playing a part -- with eyes wide open to the lies being told to our faces and the theft going on right underneath our noses. Hidden in plain sight, as it were, by the blandness and ordinariness of it all. Truthfully, I don’t know if I completely understand this song, but I got something out of it. And, as with the rest of the album so far, it is so infectious and enjoyable, it’s like a really great teacher who imparts wisdom in an engaging way, and you listen, you soak it in, and you trust that even if every meaning and truth is not clear today, it’s all going in to be processed later, as you go on through your life.
In conjunction with the single release, the band are also releasing their second full-length video.
The video, which like the first video, "Dumb Fool" features the band members, was filmed in the Washington D.C. restaurant, Comet Ping Pong. Which is also where the band will be celebrating the release of the single and video on April 20 with special guests, Joey Kneiser and Kelly Smith (of Grey Jacks old band Glossary) and Austin Lucas. Kneiser recently released, The Wildness, and Lucas is touring in support of his just released Between the Moon and the Midwest. This will be a show that you do not want to miss.
