Mark Phillips over at Americana UK wrote some nice things about our record.

From the Americana UK website: (more…)

Why radio sucks, continued…

New York Attorney General Eliot Spittzer’s office has released 59 pages of correspondence between Sony Music and radio stations. They confirm what most folks already know: payola is alive and well in American radio. (more…)

I periodically Google the phrase TANGLEWEED just to see what’s out there.

We are rapidly accounting for most of the returned results, but we don’t have it completely covered just yet, as evidenced by this little blurb, which I stumbled across in my googlin’ last week:

**TANGLEWEED: The tangleweed is, perhaps, among the most aptly named plants in all the land, as it is known as a voracious opportunist, wrapping its long, snake-like vines around any nearby support, eventually obscuring and consuming its benefactor. The sap from a tangleweed is used as a potent stimulant in its rawest form, but when refined, it can be made to serve a more useful purpose as a restorative.**

Sounds a bit like our music - wraps itself around you, leans on you for support in order that it may grow and grow, and eventually consumes you in the manner of the rawest of stimulants.

Yes, that’s about what we’re going for here - like chili peppers and roller coasters, Tangleweed is yet another cheap, natural high, specially packaged for widespread use in the public sector.

And if refined, we can serve as a restorative - witness the positive calming effects of our recent well-dressed, alcohol-free jazz set at an upscale wedding rehearsal dinner for proof of this phenomenon.

Phil Milstein has curated an excellent series of song-poem reissues, MSR Madness, and WFMU’s Beware of the Blog has a new entry dedicated to volumes five and six.

They’ve posted high-quality MP3s of all 56 tracks from the two albums. The tracks include some tunes that I’ve performed with my pal Ed Burch at some of his Hideout shows.

Volume 5 contains ‘I Like Yellow Things‘, which my two-year-old daughter has declared to be her favorite song.

We’re doing our record release show at the Abbey Pub on September 16th. We’ll be sharing the bill with two fine Bloodshot Records artists: Scott H. Biram and The Legendary Shack Shakers.

More details to follow.

We’d like to thank Colby Maddox and Steve Rosen for filling in for Billy on Fiddle over the last couple weeks.

Billy’s working in Korea for about 6 weeks, so it’s great to have some dedicated backup while he’s away.

Last Friday, we played a 2.5 hour set at a wedding with Steve (no breaks!) then went and did two full sets at the Charleston with Colby (and also the Mayor of Bucktown sitting in on harmonica - you’ve gotta hear this guy bark like a dog when he’s playing harp, it’s really something).

Then Steve joined us again for three sets at the Irish American Heritage Center last night. We worked up several new tunes for him to lead us through, including Mississippi Sawyer, Forked Deer, In the Pines, and Bill Cheatum (which we’d been playing last year but lost track of, so it was good to get this one back).

So big Tangleweed thanks to Colby and Steve for all the time and effort. Adventursome guys like this who’ll play whole shows with us on NO REHEARSAL are a special breed.

UK radio host/ music journalist Graham Lees wrote a nice review of Just a Spoonful on his website. Check it out:

http://www.gpservices38.freeserve.co.uk/tangleweedspoonful.htm

Thanks to everyone who has written us to tell us how much they like ‘Just a Spoonful’. The response has been fantastic.

Our little record is getting airplay all over the world. We’ve heard from radio stations across the US, Canada, England, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, and on and on. To everyone who has played our record, thank you.

If you know of a radio show that might like a copy of our record, drop us a line.