Shrugmp3 blog: And We'll All Hee-Haw, Okay

While waiting for this morning's sleeping pill to kick in, went through the ol' mp3 blog aggregator and found this stuff that sounds interesting.

I like this blogger's writing and intend to investigate further. And you know I'm fixin' to order the 'Pickin' on Modest Mouse:' disc.

Catch the Joy Division pun. (Note downloadable mp3s from his site at the link below. If anyone's having trouble downloading tracks off of my or other people's sites, please email me and we'll get things sorted.)

We're Here to Help You Thru Yr Changes: And We'll All Hee-Haw, Okay: "Surely, you're aware of the new hot new trend in country music: Bluegrass tributes to KROQ-worthy artists. Or maybe not.

Well, let me fill you in on this one. For about the last two years at the public radio station where I volunteer, we've been getting in a lot of cross-genre 'tributes' to rock bands.

At first it was string quartets. We were getting albums like A String Quartet Tribute to Nine Inch Nails, A String Quartet Tribute to System of a Down, A String Quartet Tribute to the Velvet Underground and Nico, etc. etc. They all seemed to appear at the same time, or very closely dated to each other. (The first such album I can recall was by Apocalyptica, whose tribute to Metallica predates the ones mentioned above by at least six years or so.)

In the last year, however, we've seen an increase in bluegrass tributes. A lot of these albums were called 'Pickin' On' someone or another. You know, Pickin' on the Beach Boys, Pickin' on Hendrix, Pickin' on the Beatles, Pickin' on the 1910 Fruitgum Company, whatever. Very basic, routine, practically primer selections.

The most recent vintage of these albums all seem to come from CMH Records, an independent, traditional Americana label. On the surface, they seem like just another respectable, mom-and-pop label, offering a variety of country, gospel, kid's and Christmas albums.

Beneath the exterior, though, CMH Records are goddamn crazy people.

We started getting their CDs at KAOS around this time last year, as I recall. They were tributes to artists I don't really care to listen to that much -- Dave Matthews, Bob Marley, all that regular stuff.

Then CMH issued an album called Pickin' on Wilco.

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