Songs:Ohia - I've Been Riding With The Ghost
[purchase]
When I first started blogging Dodge from My Old Kentucky Blog and Craig from Songs:Illinois were the first two bloggers to really give me the time of day/post a link back to my site etc. I've always sort of felt that ninebullets and songs:illinois are kind of distant cousins in the blogger world.
A lot of Craig's posts are obscure even to me but they are generally (unless he's off on a freak folk tangent) well chosen and about compelling artists. Instead of trying to tell you what s:i is all about I'll let Craig himself tell you:
Songs:Illinois is committed to writing about music that is under-appreciated and unique. I've found that the music I write about shares a couple of traits. And they are: lyrical integrity, musically diverse, and written/performed by compelling characters.
Now, how does songs:illinois fit into this theme? Well songs:illinois is an extrapolation of the Jason Molina's (Magnolia Electric Co.) project Songs:Ohia of which Craig is a fan.
Over the years Craig has had a love/hate relationship with mp3 bloggers in general, even having started another blog at one point (I can not recall the name) to point out poor posting habits/trends in the mp3 blogosphere (i even got mentioned on there once).
While Craig can come off as salty sometimes there is no doubt he has turned songs:illinois into the flagship blog for this whole folk/country/whatever scene and I'd be a liar if I didn't say I was a little jealous.