Moan and Howl

With the Deep Blues Festival only a week and a half away, we figger you're either going or you're not. But, hell, I thought I'd give a last ditch effort. Independent music festivals are becoming harder to come by. The Deep Blues Festival represents all that's good about music festivals. A chance to check out legends and unsigned artists alike, minus the mega-corporate sponsors, 5 dollar bottles of water, sweaty frat boys, and trendy hype from hipster websites. It's all about the music and the love of a guitar, a trap set, and a voice howling in the dark.

We sort of figger that we haven't done our job properly around these parts in promoting the festival. We should have posted about it daily, or sumsuch. What could we have done better to spur yr interest beyond a casual looksee? The lineup is impeccable, and we're sure to return with a stack of records to share with y'all.

In this economy, it's surely hard to justify travel to a festival far from home. Hell, we're blowing our entire Spring/Summer budget on it. But we feel it's worth it, if only to support the concept, and rage, rage against the dying of great music for the sake of radio play list homogenization. Do you really want to overpay to see yet another Depressed Mode reunion or a Flaming Lips show where, I bet, they'll have balloons and bunny rabbits while working through a current prog-rock fascination? Maybe so. What the hell do we know? We'd rather see a band kicking out with the nasty in a small club or in a tiny outdoor stage ripping shreds of sonic desperation. We could be wrong here, and we often are. Maybe we don't know what we're talking about. Maybe the future of music is in easily categorized genres, and an artist only has to be "good enough" for it's intended demographic. We don't think so, though. We think there's plenty of folks out there looking for something a little more.

When music becomes safe, and functions as wallpaper for an SUV trip to the mall, it loses its power to move, maaaaannnn. And so, and verily, let it be.

The previous was just our opinion, and in no way reflects the views of the organizers of any festival or the artists involved.

But, yeah, we've got opinions. Why not?

The Deep Blues Festival features such luminaries as Elmo Williams, T-Model Ford, CeDell Davis, and Pure Country Gold. But here's some more of the artists that will be there that we're pretty enthused about. By the end of the festival, we'll probably have even more. Check 'em out, and let yr ass boogie the way to the promised land.


Black Smokers: Little Nasty Girl (mp3)

Left Lane Cruiser: Big Mama (mp3)

Reverend Deadeye: Pentecostal Rattlesnake Shake (mp3)

High Plane Drifters: I Her Moan and Howl (mp3)

Black River Bluesman: Cardboard and Plastic (mp3)

Honkeyfinger: Burning Skull Blues (mp3)

Chooglin': Hal's Haberdashery (mp3)

Left Lane Cruiser: Set Me Free (mp3)

Please support yr local independent music fests. Otherwise yr stuck with corporate-mandated music for the masses.