Bassist TOM RAY has left the BOTTLE ROCKETS, who toured with a temporary replacement in August as the opening act for JOHN FOGERTY on several American dates. …
The SCUD MOUNTAIN BOYS have broken up. See this issue’s “Miked” section for a review of their final show. …
NORA GUTHRIE, the youngest daughter of legendary American songwriter WOODY GUTHRIE, is organizing a project in which BILLY BRAGG and WILCO will record an album of songs that her father never recorded. Tentative plans call for the two acts to enter a studio in Dublin in January, reported Allstar Daily Music News, an online newsletter. …
Allstar also recently reported that EMMYLOU HARRIS is on board as executive producer of a GRAM PARSONS tribute album to be released on Almo Sounds. …
ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO plans to release a live album later this fall on St. Paul, Minnesota, label New West Records. Meanwhile, Escovedo’s rock band BUICK MACKANE is in the process of finding a new bass player; among those who may end up in that role is Alejandro’s brother and former True Believers bandmate JAVIER. …
DOLLY PARTON cut a few tracks with Nashville band SHINOLA, the latest project of Knoxville expatriate (and ex-Dirtclod) BRIAN WALDSCHLAGER, which also includes Parton’s nephew. They’re reportedly demos to suggest what Parton would sound like with a rock band. …
DALE WATSON as been nominated in four international categories at the British Country Music Awards, which will be presented Nov. 16 in Birmingham, England. Watson’s nominations are for best male vocalist (up against the likes of Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson and George Strait); best album (for his latest disc, I Hate These Songs); “rising star” (a new artist-type category); and best artist on an independent label. …
The wedding of Diesel Only honcho and World Famous Blue Jay JEREMY TEPPER to singer-songwriter LAURA CANTRELL was the event of the Nashville summer season (bride and groom live in New York, but Cantrell is from Nashville and her family still lives there). The ASYLUM STREET SPANKERS played the wedding, DON WALSER played the reception, and, naturally, Tepper sat in for a few songs. The newlywed couple even offered a duet of “Ring of Fire”. …
Chicago nightclub SCHUBAS TAVERN, one of the nation’s top roots-rock venues, was the victim of “policeus interruptus” for a weekend in mid-July. It seems that adjustments in the city’s policies for entertainment licenses, combined with misunderstandings over whether the club simply needed to have applied for a license by a certain date (which it had) or whether the license needed to already be in hand (which it wasn’t), gave Chicago police the jurisdiction to come in and pull the plug on the Backsliders in the middle of their set at the club July 10. The V-Roys were scheduled to play next but were not allowed to do so. The club out-loopholed the cops for the rest of the weekend, however, by simply not charging a cover for shows by Mandy Barnett, the Derailers and Pinetop Seven, which exempted them from the license stipulations and offered Chicagoans a bonus treat (though it clearly cost the club a good deal of money). The applied-for license was received a couple days later, and all was back to normal at the club. …
Three names we never thought we’d see in the credits of an ADAM SANDLER record: WADDY WACHTEL, GREG LEISZ, DON HEFFINGTON. …
Last, and probably least, reader Dick Estel passed along the following little passage that he spotted in an Internet article on nonprofit medical facilities: “A Nashville, Tennessee nonprofit hospital…has a lavish plastic surgery center catering to country and western stars…”
