Alt-country | Musicosity

Alt-country

Eli Young Band

With roots firmly planted in the fertile musical soil of Texas, the Eli Young Band is a little bit country and a helluva lot of guitar-driven rock & roll. Their Carnival Recording Company debut, Level, finds them poised to bust out of the Lone Star State and bring their brand of music to a wider audience, as they make inroads into neighboring states and the wider Nashville country scene. The band was formed almost five years ago by Mike Eli who grew up just outside of Houston and James Young who hails from Irving, TX.

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Teddy Thompson

Teddy Thompson was born in London, England in 1976 and is the son of Linda Thompson and Richard Thompson (Richard & Linda Thompson), and the brother of singer Kamila Thompson. Teddy's style is difficult to categorize, because his influences are varied. Growing up around folk music, he listened to a musical gamut that covered Hank Williams, Jimi Hendrix, Sam Cooke and gospel. As he fell in with other musical progeny, most notably close friend Rufus Wainwright, his sound developed into his own combination of country/western, rock, and his father's folk-rock.

Khancoban

Half noise, half folk - khancoban’s songs deploy in low-gravity and with a dash of grit. They are performed calmly, utilising calculated space and tension, exploding at key points that leave the band’s filament still burning in their wake. The name khancoban is a hijacked car from a country town in the Snowy Mountains … its AM radio spilling out tunes by the likes of Wilco, Kingsbury Manx, The Clientele and Calexico – bands both influential and with kindred music. This is a band of vast sound riddled with hideaway nooks. Now in your city, that stolen car is all khancoban’s own. Get in.

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John Hiatt

John Hiatt (born August 20, 1952 in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.) is an American rock guitarist, pianist, singer, and songwriter. He has been nominated for eleven Grammy Awards. John Hiatt's sales have never quite matched his reputation. Hiatt's songs were covered successfully by everyone from Bonnie Raitt, Ronnie Milsap, and Willie Nelson to Iggy Pop, Three Dog Night, and the Neville Brothers, yet it took him 13 years to reach the charts himself.

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Kinky Friedman

Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman (born October 31 or November 1, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter, novelist, humorist, politician and former columnist for Texas Monthly who styles himself in the mold of popular American satirists Will Rogers and Mark Twain. He was one of two independent candidates in the 2006 election for the office of Governor of Texas. Receiving 12.6% of the vote, Friedman placed fourth in the five-person race.

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Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter (born in Moscow, Idaho on October 21, 1976) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and author who performs and records with The Royal City Band (as Josh Ritter & The Royal City Band). Ritter is known for his distinctive Americana style and narrative lyrics. In 2006 he was named one of the "100 Greatest Living Songwriters" by Paste magazine. Born to two neuroscientists, Ritter bought his first guitar from the local K-MART after hearing the Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash classic Girl From the North Country.

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The Blackeyed Susans

The Blackeyed Susans are an Australian band, formed in Perth in 1989, based in Melbourne since 1992. They were initially a "holiday band" put together by David McComb in 1989 while The Triffids were in hiatus. Although line-ups have varied from year to year, almost all of them have featured Rob Snarski and early Triffids member Phil Kakulas. www.blackeyedsusans.com.au

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Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Will+Oldham" class="bbcode_artist">Will Oldham</a> (born 24 December 1970, Louisville, Kentucky) is an American <a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/singer-songwriter" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">singer-songwriter</a>, actor, and musician. His music is often (perhaps inappropriately) placed under the genre of "<a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/alt-country" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">alt-country</a>". Oldham has recorded under many names, including <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace" class="bbcode_artist">Palace</a>, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace+Music" class="bbcode_artist">Palace Music</a>, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace+Brothers" class="bbcode_artist">Palace Brothers</a>, and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/+noredirect/Bonnie+Billy" class="bbcode_artist">Bonnie Billy</a>. He often plays and records with other musicians, including <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/David+Pajo" class="bbcode_artist">David Pajo</a> and his brothers Ned and Paul Oldham, but is generally the chief creator of the music.

Michelle Shocked

Michelle Shocked is a traveller, a troubadour, a 'picker-poet', as they say in Texas. As a young feminist, she left Texas to travel, Kerouac-style, and was caught up in Reagan-era grassroots politics. Her musical career was ignited by a bootleg recording made around a Kerrville Folk Festival campfire on a Sony walkman. Released in England as ‘The Texas Campfire Tapes’ without Shocked’s authority, its success abroad enticed Mercury Records to offer the newcomer a recording contract.

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M. Ward

Stage name of Portland, Oregon based singer-songwriter Matt Ward. Ward grew up in Newbury Park, CA and attended Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. Ward was previously with the band Rodriguez, which included bassist Kyle Field (of Little Wings fame) and drummer Mike Funk. They recorded and released on cassette Box Plots and Cash Crops and then the album Swing Like a Metronome in 2000. Duet for Guitars #2 was released by Howe Gelb on his Ow Om record label. Ward's 2001 album, End of Amnesia, was put out by Future Farmer Records and his subsequent albums have been released on Merge Records.

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