ROUTES & BRANCHES  
featuring the very best of americana, alt.country and roots music
November 15, 2014
Scott Foley

I'm a lucky man to do what I do - paying the bills in part by previewing new music for KRFC and sharing it with fellow programmers and friendly listeners.  Then there are times when I'm able to sit just feet away from a great band like Whiskey Shivers as they fling their wonderful trashgrass.  I was a concert promoter years ago, and that has largely made me immune to the charms of enjoying live music in the midst of a drunken and disrespectful horde.  Nevertheless, I'm always game for the sort of command performance, audience-of-one deal that Whiskey Shivers brought from Austin.  This is a 5-piece where the talent of the individual members is almost obscured by the wild abandon with which they can play.  Bobby's a goofy, barefoot guy with a cheese-worthy mustache and a mullet, but he's also a charismatic frontman and singer, and a truly skilled fiddle player.  The same can be said for the rest of the band, each of whom grabs the occasional vocal and mixes onstage shenanigans with musicianship which could compete with most standard issue bluegrass bands.  While the 'Shivers are typically tossed in the 'grass bucket, their whirlwind also picks up strains of punk, gospel, country and Louisiana music.  Don't take Whiskey Shivers for granted - join the mosh at the foot of the stage, but enjoy the room while you can, 'cause their grimy star is on the rise. 

Also on this Episode, I make a point of never playing something simply because a label or promoter or artist has asked me to.  I'll entertain requests, but never solicit them.  More often than not, it's the artist or friends of the artist that calls in the request.  Still, today as I was typing up my playlist I realized that it looks like an ad for Bloodshot Records ...  Two tunes from their deep and satisfying new compilation, as well as cuts from recent records by Branan, Winslow-King and Bjorklund.  And some brandnew live Whitey Morgan.  When asked yesterday by a new volunteer at the station what sort of music I like, I replied (wittily) with, "Good music."  True, though.  Every Episode I just reach for what's working with me at the moment, and sometimes it just so happens that the cards fall like this. 


^  Whiskey Shivers, "Friends"  live in studio  
*  Whiskey Shivers, "Angel In the Snow"  live in studio 
*  Whiskey Shivers, "Free"  live in studio
*  Pine Hill Haints, "Rattle Them Bones"  Magick Sounds of ...  (K, 14)
*  Luke Bell, "Glory & the Grace"  Don't Mind If I Do  (Self, 14)
*  Jim White vs. Packway Handle Band, "Corn Pone Refugee"  Take It Like a Man  (Yep Roc, 15)
*  Ben Weaver, "Frank's Getaway Car"  I Would Rather Be a Buffalo  (Hymie's Record Label, 14)
*  Dirty River Boys, "Teenage Renegade"  Dirty River Boys  (Thirty Tigers, 14)
*  Victoria Willams, "Train Song (Demise of the Caboose)"  Musings of a Creekdipper  (Atlantic, 98)
*  Cory Branan, "No Hit Wonder"  No Hit Wonder  (Bloodshot, 14)
*  Longest Day of the Year, "Anywhere a Raindrop Falls"  Carapace  (Mulewax, 14)  C
*  William Elliott Whitmore, "I Wish I Was the Moon"  While No One Was Looking  (Bloodshot, 14)
*  Luke Winslow-King, "Swing That Thing"  Everlasting Arms  (Bloodshot, 14)
*  T Bone Burnett, "Anything I Say Can and Will Be Used Against You"  Tooth of Crime  (Nonesuch, 08)
*  Old Gray Mule, "Kimbro Style"  Have Mercy  (Cotton Patch Disco, 14)
*  Bloodhounds, "Dusty Bibles & Silver Spoons"  Let Loose!  (Alive Naturalsound, 14)
*  James Leg, "Is That You In the Blue"  While No One Was Looking  (Bloodshot, 14)
*  Joe Fletcher, "Haint Blue Cadillac"  You've Got the Wrong Man  (Self, 14)
*  Kasey Chambers, "Bittersweet"  Bittersweet  (Self, 14)
*  New Basement Tapes, "Kansas City"  Lost On the River  (Harvest, 14)
*  Promised Land Sound, "Make It Through the Fall"  Promised Land Sound  (Paradise of Bachelors, 13)
*  Tweedy, "Desert Bell"  Sukierae  (dbPm, 14)
*  Maggie Bjorklund, "Missing At Sea"  Shaken  (Bloodshot, 14)
*  Lyle Lovett, "In My Own Mind"  My Baby Don't Tolerate  (Lost Hwy, 03)
*  Whitey Morgan & the 78s, "Where Do You Want It (live)"  Born Raised & Live From Flint  (Bloodshot, 14)  D
*  Two Tons of Steel, "Crazy Heart"  Unraveled  (Smith, 13)
*  Doug Seegers, "Angie's Song"  Going Down to the River  (Rounder, 14)
*  Tres Chicas, "Drop Me Down"  Bloom Red & the Ordinary Girl  (Yep Roc, 06)