Sons of Bill "Siren Song"

ACL Music Festival is now a memory, and I didn’t go anywhere near it this year. Oh I heard that Stevie Wonder rocked and that Coldplay was cool, I saw some of Alison Krauss and Union Station on the stream on You Tube, and I am sure some stars were born this weekend.  Now if I wasn’t doing anything else I would have been happy to be there, as I have attended for the last five or so years, but weekends are my busy time now, and you can’t be everywhere. Well, I take that back, maybe you can be everywhere, but it has to be sequential, just one day and one date at a time. 

I have lots of friends who are trying to do just that, and we lovingly refer to them as road dogs. Virginia’s Sons of Bill are busy making every day count. They have been touring a bunch by themselves, and after this summer's run with Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, SOB were asked to continue with RCPM on their dates through the Northeast and the Great Lakes this month.  Sons Of Bill are anxiously awaiting the release of their next album, which they had hoped to deliver this fall. But we hear now that it will be coming out after Christmas, which is only three months away! Yowsa!  We had SOB in front of the Music Fog cameras at MusicFest at Steamboat 2011.  Wait a minute, that means 2012 is just over three months away, and that is a wonderful thing, since we will be returning to Music Fest.  Happy, Happy; Joy, Joy!  The song we bring you today is as yet unreleased, but is forthcoming as part of the new album from the brothers Wilson. “Siren Song,” new music from Sons of Bill.

- Jessie Scott

Reckless Kelly "Seven Nights in Eire"

Aside from being a kick ass performance troupe, brilliant musicians and worthy writers, the men of Reckless Kelly are master marketers. They have over 140,000 fans on their Facebook page, and that ain’t easy. They are a perpetual motion machine, touring incessantly. The brand new album, Good Luck & True Love, comes out today. Yippee! The album packaging is wonderful, imaginative, as it always is with these guys. They patterned it with an old timey motif. You remember those art deco scales that told your weight and gave you your fortune? Yeah, it’s like that. This album’s artwork recalls the days of silent films and arcades and sideshows. And then there is the music. It is a tasty, controlled, and tight album. After all, the band has been cranking ‘em out for fifteen years. We debuted one of the songs that is on the new CD a while back, “I Never Liked St. Valentine,” which Willy wrote with Todd Snider. If you missed it, watch it here. Actually, if you've seen it, watch it again! And there are lots of moving parts for the purchase of this album, including vinyl and even a thematic guitar.

Reckless Kelly is playing their album release show tonight at intrepid Austin venue Antone’s, where you know they will rock the house. They are calling it the CD "Relief" Party, and are donating 100% of the door to fire relief for the families here in Central Texas that have lost everything in the wildfires that have swept the Austin area. The money will go to two local charities in Bastrop, Texas. They head out west soon, as they will be appearing again at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco on October 1st, among lots of other dates on the road. If you have never seen them, well, you have to promise me you will. They tour all the time and you will have a blast!

Music Fog most recently recorded Cody and Willy Braun during MusicFest at Steamboat in January 2011. The song that we bring you today is not from the new album, but is a favorite from Wicked Twisted Road. Our version is with just the two Brauns, and it is haunting and beautiful. Here is “Seven Nights In Eire.”

- Jessie Scott

Dirty River Boys "Boomtown"

So maybe you know, or maybe you don’t, but I have been doing weekend deejaying on KNBT in New Braunfels for the last month or so. I am digging being back on the radio. Later today, at 3 pm CT, I am going to have an on-air visit from Paul Thorn during my show. You can listen at KNBT, 92.1 FM in New Braunfels, TX, or check it out on the world wide web on line at KNBT.FM, for a dose of homespun real-speak and spot on music. Paul is playing at Gruene Hall this evening. That will be a fun night of music, for sure.

The Dirty River Boys are a fairly new band on the scene these days, hailing form the dust and the hard scrabble of El Paso. The first time I saw them they were playing in the backyard of the exquisitely cool bar, Luster Pearl in Austin, and I loved their mix of energy, acoustics and percussion. They have been making the rounds themselves lately, and just wrapped up an eight gig summer tour with Cory Morrow sponsored by Red Bull.  A new EP, Train Station, is due soon and includes four songs recorded last year in Los Angeles during the Long Cold Fall sessions. They also planning to record a full album in Austin for January release. Music Fog caught up with them this past January at MusicFest at Steamboat Springs, where they played one from their first EP, Long Cold Fall, here is the Music Fog recording of “Boomtown.”

-Jessie Scott