Here's your country and your alt-country Weekend Roundup.

Checking the schedule you’ll notice Larry Joe Taylor's Texas Music Festival & Chili Cook-off is at the midway point (this year it's been expanded to five days), and there’s plenty of time to eat chili and do whatever else you wanna do within reason out there. Our fearless leader Mike pointed out that the google map on our event page for this thing is pretty useless. Agreed. It kinda looks like you’ll be drawing crude, dangerous (albeit colorful) lines on a light cycle in the movie Tron, isn’t that right Master Control Program?

And the Master Control Program says this....



Whatever. If you don't know where one of the biggest festivals in Texas is, you don't need to be there.

The Drive-By Truckers will be driving by the Gypsy Tea Room on Friday.

Wayne The Train was in town Thursday – if you missed him, he’s playing at AllGood on Friday.

Maren Morris is opening for The Gourds Friday at Suede. I like how The Gourds describe themselves:

“There is just absolutely no way to categorize this music, these songs, without tearing up the English language. On any given night, in any given bar, somewhere out in Eugene or Amarillo or Jacksonville or Lincoln. In new York city, Chicago, Dallas, San Francisco, Seattle or Austin. One can sit listening to a gourds show without a clue as to where in the hell it's gonna go. They are quilters in the true sense of the word. Scraps, fragments, leftovers, images strung together in a continuous scrabble of sheets draped over old wood like charm. This is first and foremost a music of joy. From there it is anybody's guess what the friggin' hell it is.”

That’s better than 94.43% of all MySpace bands who describe their music, as TG’s Alan has pointed out: “I don’t know – you tell us!” I haven’t figured out the exact percentage of brain damage that comes from owning a MySpace page, but I will someday.

Brand spankin' newbie Brice Long is at Gilley’s Friday. His new single is “Meat and Potato Man” and his music has been described “as country as grits.” I can’t tell you if he’s good or bad, sorry, but it all goes down the same throat, right?

Comments