Country California

Click the bullet after each quote to visit the original source.

I don’t even like country music, but my dad looks like Kevin Costner, so I wanted to see him here. ●
- – A fan explains why she’s attending Stagecoach.

I never thought we’d see the day where, if you came out with a traditional country song, you’re not just in the minority but you’re almost shunned for having done it. ●
- – Jamey Johnson hasn’t exactly been shunned, but he has become the token real country artist getting played on the radio, so point taken. What’s that they say about the exception proving the rule?

Q: What’s a different career you’d like to try if you knew you couldn’t fail?
A: Professional wrestling! ●
- – Not a wrestling fan, but think I’d pay to see Wynonna get taken down in the ring.

But we were kicking out ideas, and nothing seemed to be as big as we wanted to write it. After about five minutes, I looked down at my sheet of paper, and I’ve got this list of things we’ve come up with. I said, ‘Guys, what if we take this list of things we’ve been mentioning? They don’t really mean a whole lot on their own, but if you put them together, they mean everything.’ That’s the way we wrote ‘That’s All I Know.’ ●
- – Jason Michael Carroll independently stumbled on the idea of a list song. This one begins: “I think honesty’s right, I think lying is wrong / I think Willie and Haggard wrote some awful good songs.” Now those are some bold stances. You should support this musical visionary by buying his new album now. Oops, wrong link.

At this stage in your career, you should probably be thinking about ways to make yourself stand out from the ever-increasing crowd of the next king of country music wannabes. It’s not enough to have three names (just ask Earl Thomas Conley or Jason Michael Montgomery.) Yes, the fact that you resemble Sarah Jessica Parker with an overgrown soul patch does make you stand out, but not in a good way. ●
- – Country Standard Time’s Robert Loy pens an open letter to Jason Michael Carroll.

First time I looked at it, I thought, ‘You know what, that is such a cool cover.’ Especially bein’ in a country market, because that’s more of a Bob Seger kind of cover. It just looks more like a early, mid ’70s, retro kind of album cover, and I love that! I think that’s one of the coolest things about it. ●
- – If you want to buy Jason Michael Carroll’s new album for the neat retro cover art – retro as in Bob Seger, not retro as in Merle Haggard – you can get it here. Oops, wrong link again.

The only place in music for the singer-songwriter right now is country music. That sounds rude, because, you know, you can’t say that Kanye West is not a singer-songwriter. But if you’re the guy who wants to stand up and play the guitar, you gotta be a country singer. ●
- – Darius Rucker. If you can’t play the guitar but want to hold one anyway, you are also welcome.

On the stage were four guitarists (five if you count Chesney); two drum kits; dueling keyboards; a bassist; and a horn section that included two trumpets, an alto sax and a trombone.
A banjo and a fiddle also worked their way into the mix, weaving in and out of the performance. ●
- – Banjo and fiddle flit through Chesney’s instrumentally dense show like the ghost of country music past – or just the ghost of country music, period. Four guitarists! Overcompensate much?

Lambert had to interrupt herself at one point when horrified fans in the front row kept telling her that she was bleeding through her $240 William Rast jeans.
She just shrugged and laughed it off.
“Last weekend I was hog hunting and I cut my leg,” she said, unconcerned about the growing puddle of blood on her lower thigh.
“Really, it was no big deal,” she said. “I was drinkin’ beer and I fell in the creek bed and cut my leg.” ●
- – Miranda Lambert is sort of a badass, to whatever extent badasses are allowed to wear $240 jeans.

A: For a little while, we [Hootie & the Blowfish] changed music. We changed radio. I’m proud of that, man.
Q: How are you gonna change country radio?
A: I’m not. I’m just gonna try to fit in. [laughs] I’m just gonna try to fit in. ●
- – Darius Rucker is just gonna try to fit in.

I never considered myself a purist, but I find myself sounding a little bit like one sometimes. I start feeling overprotective of a certain sound. I take issue when someone’s doing pop and rock and roll — which I like by the way. If people are doing pop music, they ought to just call it what it is. ●
- – Pam Tillis wants a little truth in advertising.

Even though I love Shania, I’ve done plenty of eye-rolling at big-brand country music, which I think is largely an uncreative, crudely manipulative, sinister pile of junk. [But] what kind of world would it be if we let a small band of college-educated … [ideologues] say what some blue-collar worker in Cedar Rapids should or shouldn’t be enjoying? ●
- – Robbie Fulks ponders the place of music criticism.

It is my belief that bloggers are the new DJs and critics. They are more invested than a DJ or a critic – they’re real music fans. And the people that read their blogs are real music fans. No offense to the critics, but very few fans are going out and buying a CD because of a review in a major market newspaper. But if a blogger gives you a good write-up about your CD, you WILL see sales in CDs and downloads. ●
- – Speaking of blogs: if you’re not following Miss Leslie’s, you are missing out. It’s like a window into the life a modern-day honky tonk woman who (and this is important) also happens to be a capable writer.

Prior to Swift’s impressive performance, Nashville’s Gloriana and former “American Idol” contestant Kellie Pickler treated the crowd to short sets. ●
- – The sets were short? That does sound like a treat.

You should see the other guy! ●
- – 82-year-old Ralph Stanley on showing up at Stagecoach with a black eye. The injury was actually the result of a tumble he took the previous day at his West Virginia home, but he can probably still throw a punch too.