Rose Cousins
Rose Cousins uses her voice to ignite “The Darkness”, album opener for We Have Made A Spark. The album follows successful previous musical outings for Rose, If You Were For Me 
(2006) and The Send Off (2009). The album taps into Roots music and the Roots communities in her native Halifax and adopted home of Boston, Massachusetts.
Drifting structures bring an Americana feel and form to the music and songs of Rose Cousins. “For the Best” stretches out in a lazy rhythm, Rose’s voice a siren call to bring the song home. The jungle drums carry a message which they beat into “What I See”, stark piano lines trace a path on “One Way”, a back porch shuffle plays tag with “All the Stars” and the highways of Bruce Springsteen become a country road on The Boss’ “If I Should Fall Behind”. Rose Cousins is an multi-media artist without putting down her guitar. She infuses the words and music in We Have Made A Spark with wide patches of color and plenty of open spaces where you can find a safe spot to reflect.
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Craig Bickhardt
Craig Bickhardt may have a good career back-up plan as a travel agent. His description of life on “Sugarcane Street” just may have you packing. Happily, the work force will not lose any
more in its travel sector; Craig Bickhardt is content with his current job, thanks all the same. That works for his fans too, like the crowd gathered for Live At Sellersville Theatre for his recent release.
Friends in the audience are met with a lot of their sonic buddies that were introduced on Craig’s previous releases, Easy Fires, Idelwild and Brother to the Wind. “Prayers to You”, “Donald and June”, “Even A Cowboy Can Dream” and “Life With the Sound Turned Down” all show up on the stage, sharing the boards with a well delivered cover of Richard Thompson’s “Galway to Graceland”. Craig Bickhardt is a storyteller; he has the look and the sound. What separates him from his folk peers is the intensity and immersion that Craig uses to fully put himself into the songs. A live setting works well for him.
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Gary Primich
Just A Little More…with Omar Dykes honors late blues harmonica man, Gary Primich. The Austin-based harp man passed away in 2007, his life preceding his music into death. Just A
Little More…with Omar Dykes captures two discs worth of material from Gary’s recordings dating from 1994 to 2006 and includes tracks from Travelin’ Mood, Mr. Freeze, Doghouse Music and Ridin’ the Darkhorse as well as previously unreleased music. Disc one, track one sets the pace and the stage for Gary to play. “Satellite Rock”, from Gary’s first solo album release, is incendiary. His harmonica notes flies into the air and takes up all the breathing room. Gary Primich strays from strict harp work to vocals for a few tracks on the compilation, with The Howlers lead man, Omar Dykes, sharing the microphone duties. Omar’s growl is a good balance to Gary’s delivery. His vocals counter the breaths delivered through Gary’s harp full of smooth, rounded notes.
Like the song says, Gary Primich was born in Chicago. His verses varied from the original with being raised in Gary, Indiana. He picked up the harp in his teens and started going to hear and then play in the bands that gigged along Maxwell Street and other clubs on Chicago’s West and South Side. Like Chicago white blues playing peer, Paul Butterfield, Gary’s history walked similar paths and found influence that can be heard on each harmonica masters playing and delivery. Pointing out the shared experiences, Gary Primich said “I really see myself more like playing music like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, which was hearing what they loved and doing their own version of it as opposed to trying to reproduce the wheel.” Just A Little More…with Omar Dykes is a taste from a bluesman gone too soon.
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Steve Barton
Steve Barton helped put Translator on the 1980’s musical map with his angular new wave tunes. 
The more stripped down feel of his most recent release, Projector, gives the tracks a demo quality after the bombast of past projects. The songs take on a different feel due in large part to producer Marvin Etzioni’s suggestion that Steve play all the instruments himself. Steve remembers “I went over to Marvin’s house to play him some of the songs I had written. He set up his 4-track cassette machine and I started to play. By the end of the night I had played eighteen songs. He suggested that we make an album and that I play all the instruments. This was a big departure for me, as I have only made records with either Translator or with my solo band. I thought about it over a weekend and decided to say yes. We chose a studio where we could make an album on the 2” reel-to-reel tape. We recorded and mixed in around five days”.
Electric punches (“Little Heart Attack”, “Please”, “The Little Death”) are balanced with acoustic ramblings (“Here Come I”, “This Is Where Tomorrow Ends”). Steve Barton takes some chances in Projector, moving into the more expansive sonic landscape that rock without borders offers.
DOWNLOAD STEVE BARTON "THE LITTLE DEATH"
Eight Dollar Mountain
Bluegrass is growing in Southern Oregon with the Eight Dollar Mountain debut, Riverboat Gambler. The band’s style of bluegrass is an easy sway around the dance floor. The title track blends softly strummed rhythms and carefully planted guitar/banjo note patterns with interlocking harmonies. It is a template for Eight Dollar Mountain. The flash of the individual playing is alive and well but for these boys it is all about the whole, not the parts. “Two Aces”, “Freight Train of Heartache”, “Foggy Mountain Rock” and “35 Miles” are fast paced and once they rev it up, their collective feet barely hit the floor.
Eight Dollar Mountain bring freshness to the bluegrass delivery, might be from that cool northwest air. Riverboat Gambler is a white water raft ride that barrels along with a smile and a toe tap.
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Melody Walker
Melody Walker steps into the role of Gold Rush Goddess for her album, working the moniker into the album title. In “Gold Rush Goddess” as a song opening the album, Melody goes all 
celestial in her moods and flesh in her seduction. Powerful characters pepper the songs with spice in Gold Rush Goddess. Melody lets her thoughts drip out a last delivery on “Martinez”, letting the reverie comes through as words in a dream. “Do What You Love Blues” steers a course to freedom as opening finger snaps give way to a story about being your own boss on night time stage and days that see the narrator “working at something got nothing to do with me”. “Family Band” successfully revisits the reason you got on the tour bus in the first place.
Melody Walker may not exactly be the supreme being the title Gold Rush Goddess hints at but for the purpose of her songs and playing her music, she rules with a microphone scepter over a land of heartfelt Americana and Roots rhythms.
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El Pathos
Out in the garage the guitar assault is experiencing some twangs in its angst. El Pathos take their collective punk rock heritage (Catbutt, Offenders, The Dicks), keep the sonic barrage firmly
on eleven and add some distorted string bends and twangs to ‘Love & Hate’. The band manages to keep a DIY, Dammit attitude to their music when they don their Alt Country skin.
‘Love & Hate’ adds airy note patterns to the hardened edge brought in by the guitar army enlisted in El Pathos. Old habits die harder and “Ghost”, “Little Black Drops”, “Of Days” and “Sundown” take pride in their heritage, cranking out aggressive, in-yo-face punk rock that is temple pounding tight. “Election Day” opens its eyes to an acoustic strum but don’t blink. The electric side of El Pathos needs attention and gets it by reminding listeners that there are plenty of strings plugged in and sharpened to plow Alt Country fields. El Pathos fly “Straight into the Sun” on a compulsively committed rhythm ride and “No Blood of Mine” sings its memory on a cloud grounded by guitar jangle on one side and a star ride of airy sonics on the other.
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Jason Bennett
The highway has a way of ticking off memories of our lives as it pushes tar beneath your wheels. Jason Bennett has his foot down and is headed west in “How Many Miles (Until I Forget About You)” and the distance between the love that was and the future that can be is blurry as one life fades into the next.
Walsenburg Line is a four song E.P. of tunes from Colorado singer/songwriter Jason Bennett. 
The gentleness of Jason’s voice gets its bad boy on when some of the words in his songs are invaded with Dylan channeling. Bob’s mumble growl makes its way into some phrasing in Jason’s singing and the mix works nicely. A slight turn of a twang gives the natural folk tone of Jason Bennett some solid earth to stand on. “Take Me Back to the Day” turns back the clock by climbing into the emotions of the past and letting them stay for a while counters the dark clouds that formed when “She Spit My Heart Out on Raton Pass”. Walsenburg Line is the eighth release for Jason Bennett.
DOWNLOAD JASON BENNETT - "HOW MANY MILES (UNTIL I FORGET ABOUT YOU?"
Karen Dahlstrom
In “Streets of Pocatello” Karen Dahlstrom lets the power of her acapella voice be the only sound you hear. It is all that is needed. Karen’s voice gets attention without demands. The vocal control in Gem State lies in it ability to capture without a fight. Participation is won by
captivating with music, not capturing with promises. “Galena” gracefully tells its tale with a feel of aging folk music. The texture is fragile, a story pulled from time. That tone weaves its way through the five-song E.P. Karen Dahlstrom works the room with her words and her guitar with American fueled folk songs.
Gem State has tales whose age is apparent in the telling. A fine layer is dust covers the songs with tradition and Karen Dahlstrom takes the mantel of storyteller, letting the intuitive nature of the singer/songwriter allowing the tales of time past to live with fresh blood coursing in their veins, coloring cheeks and feeling the determination and trials of our ancestors once in real time.
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Hall of Ghosts
There is no way to add a love and feel for Roots music into your songs. The twang, bend, distorted riffs or voice break cannot be manufactured. Pop is a different animal. Bringing the polish into songs is not as natural. The knack of crafting may seem intuitive but it is only
gained from listening and reacting. Jim Williams nicely balances his inner default towards the more organic side of music and his love and inclination towards a more Pop friendly sound is alive and well in the music of his band, Hall of Ghosts. Influences like Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young and The Band are used as a guide but never come through as a direct copy. The Pop feel of the songs takes their Roots roots and gives them a mild makeover without erasing their heritage.
Hall of Ghosts debut, A Random Quiet, captures the Pop and Roots duality of the songs and presents it on even footing. “Giant Water” moves with graceful determination, like the love that grows in the story line, “Tonight, It’s Over” open with a harmonica blast before easing into a slow sway and “Hall of Ghosts” has a vocal echo that floats through the air on sparkling guitar notes. Hall of Ghosts is mostly the work of songwriter/vocalist/multi-instrumentalists Jim Williams with Gerry Hogan on pedal steel and Ben Davies on drums.
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Blackbird Sing
The pain collected by Robert Vito Salinas was used to marinate words that became the opening song catalog for Blackbird Sing. After the demise of the pop/punk band Dieboy, Salinas and
fellow band mate, guitarist Andy Salazar, formed Blackbird Sing. Their thirteen years as a DIY Pop/Punk group helped keep the model in place as the music created drifted in a Roots direction, bringing folk and country into a rock history.
The clear edge granted through the punk rock lyric experience uses the same blade to cut into the stories, characters and targets on the Blackbird Sing E.P. “If You Own It” uses stripped down acoustics and snaky guitar riffs that float like a ghost through the memory in the tale and “Hales” offers guitar runs that move through the song like someone is chasing them, managing to spend equal time with both big fat hooks and roof seeking riff rambles. Blackbird Sing are working on a full length debut that will hopefully stay true to its older sister E.P.
DOWNLOAD BLACKBIRD SING "IF YOU OWN IT"
Jonathan Jeter
Jonathan Jeter sets the calendar dates for his stories on today. His music, words and vocals all have a layer of grit attached that keeps the songs and mood crackling on Late to My Own Funeral, the latest release from Jonathan Jeter & The Revelators. The recording uses electricity as much as playing to create a mood. The Americana/Country Rock sound style has an added edge sharpened in the delivery by the great use of sonics to underline and light dark corners of the songs.
“Come On” is a tease that challenges to follow along the Pied Piper trance that one chord provides as Jonathan Jeter does a stripped down John Mellencamp vocal delivery. That classic rock texture lies over the songs. “19 Doin’ 20” says country in the vocal drawl and rock in the determination and force of the music while “Barfly” gets down to its acoustics for the opening and adds layers of slow cooked country blues as the track builds.
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Michael & The Lonesome Playboys
Michael Ubaldini had his stars lined up in the early 2000’s. He was opening shows for Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, John Doe or The Blind Boys of Alabama, had a published book, ‘Lost American Nights: Lyrics and Poems’ and played gigs where he would look out and see John
Fogerty and the gone but never forgotten Joe Strummer in the audience. The road ended for that ride on Thanksgiving Day 2009 when his health took a turn that had doctors telling the musician that he would not be able to walk or play guitar again. His hand opened on Christmas Day in the same year and the first thing Michael reached for was a guitar. After intense physical therapy the man became a miracle and worked the hard road back to full recovery.
Last of the Honky Tonks is the album that acts is Michael Ubaldini’s recovery album. Recorded live in the studio, the music is stripped down and a good match for the truth hardwired into the songs of Michael & The Lonesome Playboys. The title track looks to modern country music as the devil and remembers good time music, rhinestone suits and the smell of hairspray mixed with beer as pure ambrosia, “Married by the Gospel/Divorced by the Law” takes a spin through a drive by relationship and “My Livers Bad, My Life’s A Mess” tips the balance scales towards good sense and away from lust. Michael & The Lonesome Playboys wrap their songs in classic country. The Honky Tonks may be leaving but the juke boxes still plays on.
DOWNLOAD MICHAEL & THE LONESOME PLAYBOYS "THE LAST HONKY TONKS"
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