The Music Biz: Nashville Sucks

I could go on for days about the songs I went through High School with that throw words at the music industry – specifically Nashville and their blood-thirsty executives. Most of these songs are filled with personal spite after many Texas music-makers made hopeful trips to the country music capitol only to return downtrodden and empty-handed. In fact, the biggest unifying factor in the group of artists that make the Texas/Red Dirt Scene is their mutual disdain for the entire commercial country machine.

In one particular case, Mike McClure – then leader of the relatively successful band The Great Divide – returned from Nashville with a bag of matchbooks embossed with the band’s logo, but no record deal and no plans for future talks. Cody Canada of Cross Canadian Ragweed re-tells the story and caps it off with the idea of setting the town ablaze with Molotov Cocktails ignited by those very matches.

Cross Canadian Ragweed: Anywhere But Here
[purchase]

On the heels of Pat Green’s fanbase – one that carried over from the Outlaw scene created by Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff, David Allan Coe, etc., these bands found a rabid group of listeners in Texas and Oklahoma who were eager to call the music their own. Fans have been known to chant “Nashville Sucks!” as a left-handed request for Cory Morrow’s Nashville Blues.

Cory Morrow: Nashville Blues
[purchase]

I was very much into this scene a few years ago - while I still enjoy some of the artists, much of that music was shelved to make room for the never-ending flow of great music that can be found (whether from Nashville or not) around the blogosphere. Once I realized that you didn’t have to be from Texas to make real music, my eyes were opened wide. Being a fan of that scene, however, I learned the value and importance of original songwriting, connecting with fans, and the live show experience. The growing success of nearly every ‘Texas Music’ band is proof that dedication pays – especially after failure.

While many of the bands in the scene now have much bigger deals than the ones they were living off a few years ago, they still retain animosity toward having any aspect of their careers controlled by someone who probably hasn’t even picked up a guitar. I caught Ragweed at the CD Release Party for their most recent disc Mission California. As part of their contract with Universal South, if they played a show on the day of the actual release, they were required to play the album front to back, in order, and with no encore. Cody Canada made a point to apologize to the fans for this before the show started, and immediately broke into ‘track 1’ of the record:

Cross Canadian Ragweed: Record Exec
[purchase]

Here are a few more songs from the genre expressing the same sentiments.

Travis Linville: Ain’t Bein Treated Right
[purchase]

Houston Marchman: Viet Nashville
[purchase]

Jack Ingram: Happy Happy Country Country
[purchase]