ROUTES & BRANCHES      

featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music   

May 25, 2013

Scott Foley

Bands throughout popular music history have proven that it shouldn't take more than two people to make an wonderfully unholy racket.  Sometimes we're so addicted to the trinity of guitar/bass/drum to appreciate the shining wonder of a duo like Smooth Hound Smith.  From LA and/or Nashville, Smooth Hound Smith is composed of singers Zack Smith and Caitlin Doyle with Smith wrangling guitars, stomping and mouth harp and Doyle working a diversity of percussions.  Like Shovels & Rope, Smith & Doyle work with the materials of folk and blues music that have been at our collective disposal for untold years.  Their sound honors the sounds of that past while deliberately flying in the face of tradition a'la Violent Femmes or the Knitters.  Like many of my favorite bands, Smooth Hound Smith sound great on record, but could fit in just as well busking on a streetcorner.  

Thanks to all who came forward during KRFC's Spring 2013 Membership Drive.  Thanks, too, to Fast Eddie who kept me company in studio this week.  Please watch this space for the official announcement of the debut of Fast Eddie's new show on the station.  In the meantime, if you happened to miss the formal drive, you can always stop down at KRFC's website and support Routes & Branches et al. simply by clicking.  

Next week, please join me as we welcome Michael Dean Damron for some instudio chat and music.  Fresh off the release of I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In the House's stellar Mayberry, Mike will also be part of next Saturday's promising Choice City Stomp daylong festival in Fort Collins.   
 

* Arliss Nancy, "Rodeo"  Tour EP  (Cats?Aye! 13)  C
*  Backyard Tire Fire, "Good To Be"  Good To Be  (Self, 09)
*  Patty Griffin, "Go Wherever You Wanna Go"  American Kid  (New West, 13)
*  Drag the River, "Get Over It Or Get It Over With"  Found All the Parts  (Sub.Home, 04)  C
*  John Murry, "Photograph"  Graceless Age  (Evangeline, 13)
^  Smooth Hound Smith, "30 Days"  Smooth Hound Smith  (Self, 13)  D
*  Jay Farrar, "Fool King's Crown"  Terroir Blues  (Artemis, 03)
*  William Clark Green, "Rose Queen"  Rose Queen  (Self, 13)   D
*  I Can Lick Any SOB In the House, "King James"  Mayberry  (Last Chance, 13)
*  Steve Earle & Allison Moorer, "I Will"  Let Us In Americana  (Reviver, 13)
*  Dan Craig, "Soldier Don't Look Down"  Accidents  (Self, 09)  C
*  Emily Herring, "Your Mistake"  Your Mistake  (Self, 13)  D
*  Old Crow Medicine Show, "I Hear Them All"  Big Iron World  (Nettwerk, 06)
*  Hollyfelds, "She's Got You"  Black Heart Blue  (Self, 09)  C
*  Shannon McNally, "Love In the Worst Degree"  Small Town Talk  (Sacred Sumac, 13)
*  Eddie Spaghetti, "Value of Nothing"  Value of Nothing  (Self, 13)  D
*  Kim Richey, "I'm Going Down"  Thorn In My Heart  (Yep Roc, 13)
*  Jason Isbell, "Super 8"  Southeastern  (12th St, 13)
*  Al Anderson, "Someone To Give My Love To"  Touch My Heart  (Sugar Hill, 04)
*  Lambchop, "Jim I Wore a Tie Today"  You Don't Know Me: Resurrecting Eddy Arnold  (Plowboy, 13)
*  4H Royalty, "Virtues Spices & Liquors"  Where UFOs Go To Die  (Self, 12)  C
*  Ryan Bingham, "You Are Blind"  Ghost Brothers of Darkland County  (Concord, 13)
*  Lucero, "Texas & Tennessee"  Texas & Tennessee  (ATO, 13)
*  Rosanne Cash, "Real Woman"  Interiors  (Columbia, 90)