Nobody's Girl

It's no secret that I LOVE music.  As dramatic as it may seem, music is like a drug for me.  I crave it.  I need it.  If you've ever glanced at my iTunes library I'm sure you've noticed the range of music from classic rock, old-school country, alternative artists you've probably never heard of, pop, rock... even some Beiber and (gasp!) I finally broke down and bought a Taylor Swift song the other day.  And yeah, I feel like I lost a little street cred as I clicked the "buy" button on iTunes.  I like to find the songs and artists before they hit.  By the time any of my friends had heard the song "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, I had been rocking out to it for months and was already burned out on it.  I don't even listen to the radio anymore because I find it so constrictive. 

Anyway, when I lived in Texas, my friend Hunter and I would go driving around and for about a month straight we watched a DVD of a band called Reckless Kelly.  Apparently as soon as I crossed into the Lone Star State, I was supposed to know who Reckless Kelly (and Robert Earl Keen) was.  They were unlike anything I had ever heard before!  They were country, but not really; rock, but not really.  It was my first taste of legit Red Dirt music.  In trying to find the words to describe this genre, I took to the all-knowing world of Wikipedia and found the following:

Some define Red Dirt music as "country with attitude."  Others say it's a state of mind as much as it is a sound - a sound that successfully closes the door between rock and country.

That sums it up pretty well; I just hope I can remember that answer for the next time someone asks me to describe Red Dirt music! 

Good lord I ramble a lot when I get on the topic of music.  My mind keeps wandering down all these different paths at the same time and I'm trying to stick with only the relevant points!  Bear with me.

So, in 2008 I was digging the Red Dirt scene and since Reckless Kelly was a band from Austin, it was only a matter of time before I went to see them live at the legendary Billy Bob's.  My friend Amanda from Arkansas came in for the weekend and we went with Hunter and his date.  Front row, right in front of the lead guitar player, David Abeytta.  And yeah, at the end of the show, we strummed his guitar.  Oh, get your heads out of the gutter - I meant literally.  He was wailing away, leaned over and told Amanda and me to go at it on the strings.  Aside from that, the show was awesome!!!  I loved every second of it and became a Reckless Kelly junkie.

When I moved back to Kentucky, I thought I'd have to drive west to get to see them again but their tour schedule brings to Nashville about once a year.  Score!  So, why is it that it's taken me this long to get to another concert?  A couple of year ago, I had tickets in hand but after a cahotic trip to California and back, we got sick and just weren't able to go.  Last year I couldn't find anyone who would go with me.  When I checked their schedule about a month ago and saw they were coming back to Nashville, I was not going to miss it again.

Finding someone to go with me was a little tricky but in the end I met up with my new friend Anna in Nashville at Exit/In.  I was surprised that the place wasn't full when we got there, but I was ok with it because we managed to get a spot right at the stage (hey, when you're 5' tall and the show is floor level, standing, that's like hitting a home run!). 

I need to take a moment and revel in the feeling of being right in front of the stage.  With every slam of the kick drum, there was a palpable woosh of air.  The breeze moved my clothes, washed across my skin in waves and the force of the sound bounced around in my chest.  In the loud, crowded space full of music and screams - I felt at peace.  For me, there's nothing like the sensation of feeling the pulsing of the music.  That was me, getting a hit of the drug I crave.  You can't get that feeling 10 rows back, or in your car, or anywhere except in front of a very large speaker cranked up to a deafening volume.  I know it's corny, or something silly like John Mayer would say, but it's the truth.

The opening act was a band I'd never heard of, Connor Christian and Southern Gothic.  Please don't be uninformed and visit their website as soon as you finish reading this blog!  There is a bundle of 9 free songs on their website and trust me, you need this band in your life.  They're from Atlanta and the lead singer's voice is gritty and raw and sexy and smooth all rolled into one package.  Their fiddle player is a chick from the Soviet Union (you can read more about her story here - it's pretty amazing).  What I liked was how versital this band was.  The lead singer played guitar and keyboard, the fiddle player also picked the mandolin and keyboard, the lead guitarist also played fiddle, mandolin, banjo and keyboard.  They each played all of these instruments well.  Thanks to one of the stage hands, I managed to get one of the set lists.  I bought one of their CD's at the show, downloaded the free tunes yesterday and last night went shopping on iTunes.  I'm sold.

Then Reckless Kelly came out and I immediately turned into a screaming idiot.  Their new album, Good Luck and True Love has a bunch of great songs on it.  "Save Me From Myself" is all about how things used to be back in the day.  I'm paraphrasing here, but basically Willie said something like "When I was a kid, we didn't wear seatbelts! We rode in the back of the truck! Every once in a while, somebody'd fall out and break their arm. That's tough shit and that's how we figured out to stay in the back of the truck. When I was a kid, we didn't wear helmets when we rode our bikes. We made jumps out of stacks of tires and a piece of plywood. The only 2 kinds of people that wore helmets were daredevils and pussies!"

The only thing that made me sad was that because there was a guest guitar player (Keith Stanley, who did a ridiculously long cover of Charlie Robinson's El Cerrito Place), Reckless Kelly didn't play "Crazy Eddie's Last Hurrah".  I felt a little empty inside because I didn't get to sing about pipe bombs and shooting a guy full of holes.  It's just not right to deprive me of that pleasure!  If you don't know the song, here is the video of it from their Reckless Kelly Was Here CD/DVD combo.

If you're looking for country music that's not most of the watered-down, pansy crap that is played on "country" radio then definitely check out these bands if you're not familiar with them.  It's real music, raw and just more than what the music industry wants to give you!