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Peter Blackstock

Silos - Cuba

In mid-September of 2001, about a week after that fateful day, I drove a couple hours north to Richmond, Virginia, having heard that Bob Rupe was planning to sit in for a few songs with the Silos at Poe's Pub. This was a rare occasion; Rupe and Silos

Uncle Tupelo - 89-93: An Anthology

More than a decade, now, since an old friend at Waterloo Records started raving about a new album they'd just gotten at the store. Roscoe was probably the world's biggest Replacements fan (that was his bootleg cassette they swiped and disseminated as The Shit Hits The

Mickey Newbury - A Long Road Home

"Do you still have your dreams?" Mickey Newbury drops this question about halfway through his new album's title track, one of two songs on the disc that clock in on the long side of ten minutes. Newbury has sketched plenty of three-minute vignettes ripe for radio

Various Artists - Poet: A Tribute To Townes Van Zandt

Back in February 1992, in a telephone interview for a daily-paper concert preview, I asked Townes Van Zandt if he tended to benefit from the covers of his songs that occasionally popped up amid the big leagues of country music. I meant it in a financial sense, related to publishing

Bob Schneider - Lonelyland

More than a year after it went on sale at Waterloo Records in Austin -- where it eventually sold more than 10,000 copies, at a single store -- Lonelyland finally received a nationwide release via Universal in March. The ultimate big-fish-in-a-small-pond story, Schneider has been king of the Austin

West Texas rivers and wind-blown campfire tunes

Driving west on I-10 from Austin, the desert creeps up on you, gradually revealing itself mile after mile after mile until the entire landscape has changed. The winding rivers, lazy lakes, scrubby trees and colorful flowers of the Texas Hill Country finally give way to barren creekbeds, rocky outcroppings, desolate

Neko Case - Destiny rides again

It's a recurring theme in our conversation, though not by design -- which is perfect, because that pretty much is the theme. Grand plans just seem to fall into Neko Case's hands, like a destiny she had nothing to do with, but she seized the opportunity