The Slick, Soundtracked, November Surprise. Monday Nov 7 2022

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The Most Slickly-Produced Extravaganza of the Season

Sorry, OSCARS, EMMYS, GRAMMYS, Americana Music Awards. You didn’t win. But wait’ll you see what did.

In American politics, there is always breathless worry over some game-changing revelation, or simply allegation, or anything regarded as a sociocultural bombshell, in the last weeks before an election. Almost always, it is later regarded as no-big-deal, but if it hits an emotional chord long enough for people to vote, it matters not how important or even how true or false it is.

Forget the October Surprise. I just experienced a November Surprise.

First, some quick context. You may recall us saying that RFD-TV — in addition to its roots-Americana music programming — has been doing an outstanding job with no-BS coverage of COVID. It's centered on their weekly live show with the Chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical School, Dr. Jeffrey Gold. And that world-renowned doc brings guests, including, three times, his old friend Anthony Fauci.

It truly has been solid science and it’s probably saved a lot of lives among their predominantly rural audience.

Okay, let’s get to the now.

How fast something can turn. I watch a lot of RFD’s programming. And given my background in Los Angeles media, including broadcast radio, I have sufficient experience to evaluate how well something is written and produced. And, as a viewer with that background, I can assess what's the typical and the highest levels of RFD’s production paradigms. I know who their best writer is, and she is also their best host.

Sunday night, two days before the election, they aired the best-written, best-presented, highest-production-values hour I have ever seen on RFD. It was heavily promoted for two weeks in advance, which is very unusual for them. 

So guess what it was?

How about this: filled with every positive superlative word and phrase you can imagine, and repeatedly subjecting you to how morally righteous their subject is — including multiple points of what a lover-of-Jesus he is — and, with a mood-driving perfect musical score, trumpeted sunrises and American flags, plus get-on-the-bandwagon-effect, man-in-the-street, fawning hero worship... it was a full hour to celebrate the perfection of the human being -- in the form of one Herschel Walker.

I’ll give you a moment to be stunned. Because yes, we ARE talking about “Head Injury Herschel.”

I have seen a number of those slickly-produced films from top advertising and image-making Madison Avenue and K Street firms. They are best summarized as the stirring promo short that introduces a political party’s Presidential nominee at their televised political convention, which is itself a production of magnetic propaganda. Those films have always been as good as it gets to deify a human being. THIS was that effectively done. Leni Riefenstahl would have been proud.

I mean, this thing was SO effective that if Herschel wins, the Goppers have RFD-TV’s founder, Patrick Gottsch — who executive produced this— and their most charismatic, popular host, Christina Loren — to thank for putting a babbling, insufferably self-righteous moron in the United States Senate.

This morning, I heard Joe Madison say, “Let’s review. What is Herschel Walker’s resume’? Good at football. Holds the single-season record for impregnating women.”

Madison’s quips go to the essence of the hopelessly flawed candidacy of Herschel Walker. Yet the RFD hour gave smooth rides around his lies, multiple hypocrisies on wanting to ban abortion yet paying to abort multiple pregnancies he has caused, and refusing to be involved in the lives of at least eight children he has fathered by different mothers.

Were any questions about any of THAT featured in the RFD hour? Not even a mention, between all the careful edits of Herschel asserting that he is holier than thou.

If I wasn’t overexposed to “Head Injury Herschel” and all his “What the Hell Herschel” moments, RFD would have me believing he is the greatest statesman since Cicero. Except… each time more newly-found children, fathered by him with so many random women who he couldn't convince to get an abortion, reality collides with irreconcilable images. 

But, if I was someone who spent all my hours at work or stuck in a long commute, and that made me a “low information voter” — I would believe, after watching this slick RFD production, that Herschel-the -Holy-Running-Back is God on a White Horse who belongs in the White House. YES, media IS that powerful in its crafted ability to wholly determine false reality.

Oh, and by the way. In seamlessly welding their performance-production-propaganda hour, RFD didn’t miss ANYTHING. They even include a tidbit for the white racists: Herschel, in one quick segment, is wearing a “Cassius Clay” sweatshirt. Have you EVER seen, or even known of, a garment like that?

Except maybe before Muhammad Ali took the new name by which the entire world would know him, and white racists would always try to deny him.

Gads, now I will wonder if I can sleep at all before the election, given the possibility of dream images of the "incredibly inspiring" greatest athlete who ever lived. Which according to RFD, is not Ali, but Herschel. Who, by the way, likes to be interviewed in barns with cows, and likes to talk about how much he loves rodeo. And barbecue. And Jesus.

And, likewise, according to the RFD hour, Herschel as the most universally beloved athlete of all time, "vows to bring his dedication and fortitude" to fix everything that’s wrong in DC.

If you aren’t ready to scream or puke, you haven’t been paying attention.

One final note: since the RFD show exceeded the production values of anything they have ever done, and did so by a vast margin…where did the money come from to make that show? Since the Supreme Court protects “dark money” in politics, we may never know. But it is one more reason why the “For the People Act,” passed as the FIRST piece of legislation in 2021 by the US House of Representatives, should NEVER have been allowed to silently die from a “memo” filibuster in the US Senate.

If you read all this, what more motivation do you need to vote Tuesday?

Rovember 8th. You can let the obstructionists pursue their only agenda, of Big Money running roughshod over all of us and our political system. Or you can say 

“No. Need must prevail over greed. Intelligent, thoughtful, fiscally responsible compassion must determine how we govern ourselves. Those who have no agenda but grievance based on lies and demands for insatiable power must never get their hands on power again.”

If that sounds like an impossibly ambitious aspiration in the face of powerful media that creates heroes from dimwits, ask yourself just one thing:

 Will I make it better by not voting?

You can ask yourself any follow-up question you like: will Music and Arts education return to every public school for every student if I don’t vote? Will Climate Change be reversed if I don’t vote? Will democracy itself long endure if I don’t vote? Will morbidly rich, bloated billionaires, continue to overconsolidate and concentrate wealth and power until they have it all, if you don’t vote? Add your own questions.

I’ll see you at the only poll that matters: the one where you cast your vote.

~ Lawrence Wines, editor

Acoustic Americana Music Guide

November 7, 2022

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Copyright of this edition is granted without fee provided no use deriving from said use edits the foregoing content to alter its intent from the clear message in the original.

(c) 2022, Acoustic Americana Music Guide, Tied to the Tracks, and Lawrence Wines.

Everybody else does Halloween. We tell you about Nevada's connection with October 31st. Mon Oct 31 edition 2022

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Yes, we HAVE often annually covered Halloween and its original Celtic roots, along with the Latin American Day of the Dead, and All Hallows Eve, and All Saints Day, and whatever other historical identities and cultural fixations pertain to harvest celebrations. After all, music and dance are integral parts of most of those things. But this year, we just didn't come across things like that you could attend. No, that doesn't mean they aren't out there, but we were not in the loop if they are. Yes, yes, shocking admission, given. we are expected to know all and tell all that isn't scandalous gossip.

So we are instead engaging in storytelling. We'll tell you an October 31st tale you have never heard. It's about a land of wonder that's right next door if you're a Californian. And it features a look beyond the usual attractions of a favorite vacation destination visited by most of the world. Stick with us for a few minutes, and you'll have plenty of new reasons to appreciate it when next you go there. 

Let's get started!

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A land of wonder, right next door

Nevada celebrates its 158th birthday on Monday, Oct 31. Yep, Halloween is its birthday. Which may explain why some people invoke the fates and embrace the spirits when they go there. But we will 3xplire the fascinating realm of the real. One hint: if you have pinstriped overalls And gauntlet gloves, put them on as your Halloween costume to come aboard. Because -- though it isn't readily evident today -- no state has more connections with its colorful railroad past.

Here are some fun facts about Nevada:

Nevada's silver financed the Union victory in the Civil War. Because the Confederacy realized that and coveted the then-territory's riches, Nevada was made a state in 1864 with the motto, "Battle Born."

Nicknamed the "Silver State", Nevada is actually the largest gold-producing state in the U.S. and fourth-largest in the world.

Nevada is the seventh-largest state in size in the U.S., at 110,622 square miles.

The state was named after the High Sierra, which is, formally, the "Sierra Nevada" mountain range. Nevada's highest point is Boundary Peak, named because it's barely in the state at the north end of California's White Mountains / Inyo Mountains chain. Those north-south mountains are east of and across from the Sierra Nevada, and those ranges of mountains are almost all in California.

Still, Nevada contains more separate mountain ranges than any other state in the U.S., including Alaska. Nearly all Nevada's mountains run north-south in parallel ranges, divided by north-south valleys with pasture land, antelope, cattle herds, creeks fed by alpine snows, and due to hot summers, dry lake beds.

Wagon trains of 1840s-1860s westward-bound settlers for Oregon and California took trails winding around those north-south mountain ranges. The first transcontinental railroad, the Central Pacific, had to do the same.

Subsequent railroads -- dozens if them, like the Eureka & Palisade, Virginia & Truckee, Nevada Central, Carson & Colorado (named for the rivers, not the other state), Nevada Northern, Tonopan & Goldfield, Death Valley Railroad, and more -- tackled formidable mountains to reach mining towns.

A few other railroad "through routes" -- the Western Pacific, built by Colorado's Denver & Rio Grande and stolen by Gilded Age banksters, and the UP's surrogate "Salt Lake Route," though built to get somewhere else, connected some of Nevada's mining camps with California and the East. Mining railroads Tonopah & Tidewater and Las Vegas & Tonopah became trunk lines using lateral valleys to connect northern and southern Nevada's cities. (Today,  with no rail connection between Reno and Vegas, the highway is packed with big rig trucks.)

America's largest silver deposit, the Comstock Lode, was found in Nevada in 1859. That was a decade before the transcontinental railroad was completed. Virginia City developed on a mountainside to feed the Comstock mines with supplies and the miners with saloons and ladies of the evening. 

The Virginia & Truckee Railroad became the first in the pattern: it climbed up to Virginia City in a geographical fishhook, connecting with the transcontinental railroad at Reno. Notably, the 150th birthday of the V&T was just celebrated in July 2022 at the Nevada State RR Museum in Carson City, the State Capital and the former V&T midpoint.

Nevada was the first state to ratify the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits state and federal governments from denying a citizen the vote based on that person's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The transcontinental railroad had been built from the East primarily by Irish immigrants, and from the West over the Sierra Nevada  and across the state by Chinese immigrants who were recruited in China to do work California's 1860s residents did not want to do. After building the Central Pacific, these Chinese immigrants became the West's railroad builders in Nevada and elsewhere. But that does not mean their contribution was acclaimed, or even valued. The West's Chinese experienced severe discrimination, eventually settling in enclaves like the Chinatown communities of San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Nevada never had "Jim Crow" laws that racially separated passengers aboard its trains, unlike the accommodations unconstitutionally mandated until the 1960s by individual state laws aboard trains in Texas and across the entire Southeast. But there was de facto discrimination in Nevada's hotels for the state's first hundred years, practiced against most of America's minorities.

Today, Las Vegas has more hotel rooms than any other city on Earth. 15 of the top 25 largest hotels in the world are in Las Vegas.

The gambling mecca of Las Vegas was originally established not by Bugsy Siegel and the mob, but by the San Pedro, Los Angeles, & Salt Lake Railroad, "The Salt Lake Route." I

Originally, Las Vegas was simply a water stop for steam locomotives because good water was plentiful there in the middle of the desert. The springs in "The Meadows," the Engish translation of the Spanish-named Las Vegas, seemed abundant, until the city outgrew even what Lake Mead can provide. 

That railroad, the SPLA&SL, that established Las Vegas, was from the start a subsidiary of the Union Pacific. Its rails were the first to take the Union Pacific to the Pacific, via L.A., branching southwest from its previous Utah terminus with the Central Pacific. (That was a hundred years before the mega-mergers UP gobbled-up purt near every other railroad that reached the Pacific via California, or the Gulf of Mexico via Texas and Louisiana.)

Nevada nourishes the fervor of the conspiratorially minded with its state-designated "Alien Highway."

"Area 51" is a cliche with an actual name too secret to be spoken,  much less published here. It is a top secret area of Nellis Air Force Range and Nuclear Test Site. And it is rumored to have housed the development of the first operational mach-3+ high altitude airplanes and the first Stealth aircraft -- and to be the home of "alien UFO research facilities."

It IS true that a conspiracy existed for decades to minimize and lie altogether about the dangers of nuclear testing in Nevada. Culprits with complicity included government, the state's gaming and hospitality industries, the military, the Atomic Energy Commission. In later years, the central villain promoting denial of harm and fighting cancer treatment compensation for Atomic Veterans and esposed civilians is the nebulously-defined Military-Industrial-Cybersecurity-Complex in its original identity (pre cybersecurity) when President Eisenhower coined the term to warn about it in his Farewell Address. Atomic fights continue in Nevada, over the state's designation as the sole depository for nuclear waste.

Today -- in addition to the casinos and a previously nomadic football franchise -- Nevada offers delights beyond the cities. Things that were always there are being discovered anew. These include remote mountain hikes and climbs, opportunities to view wildlife, water sports on rivers and reservoirs, and seasonal rides aboard vintage trains on historic rail routes. You can board the Virginia & Truckee (reborn in 1976 in Virginia City) and the Nevada Northern (the best-preserved 1890s railroad in America, rejuvenated in Ely), and the Nevada State Railroad Museum's two sites, in Carson City and Boulder. Amtrak's modern "California Zephyr" runs daily, year-round, across the width of Nevada on the original 1869 transcontinental railroad route.

Aside from the historical attractions and tourist trains, all the railroads in Nevada now are owned by the Union Pacific. That includes its own original "Salt Lake Route" mainline from Los Angeles, roughly paralleling the newer I-15 East to Vegas, then heading north into the hinterlands to fascinating little Pioche (great local museum there) and historic Caliente, then going up the largely roadless and still wild Meadow Valley Wash and into Utah. In addition, UP now owns both the original Central Pacific, which became Southern Pacific, and its later rival Western Pacific. Both those lines cross the state from their separate Sierra crossings in California, one down from Donner Pass, the other via the Feather River Canyon. From Reno, they parallel I-40  east, before taking their own routes into Utah.

Alongside those rail arteries, there are huge modern distribution warehouses outside Reno and Vegas, mostly served by trucks. So Nevada's railroads -- except for passenger stops by its sole Amtrak train -- don't service much Silver State commerce anymore. It may be a metaphor for today's coast-to-coast "conveyor belt" freight railways, but it just feels more poignant in a Silver State once served by a network of gleaming silver rails.

You should know about a splendid instigation tool for field adventures. It's the two-volume book, "Railroads of Nevada and Eastern California," by Prof. David Myrick. 60 years after it was first published, it remains a top resource. Whether read at home for ideas, or out where the wild horses roam, it's a time machine to when Nevada epitomized rootin' tootin' galloping horses, train robbers, 20 mule teams, and echoing steam whistles across the Wild West.

Nevada's backroads take you to the tangible remnants of the Oregon and California Trails and the route of the Pony Express. And to dozens of abandoned railroads from times when you endured eating dust from atop a mule, or went by steam train. The latter often had Pullman sleepers and dining car meals that included fresh oysters and pheasant under glass. Railroad cuisine was served on real china, unique to individual trains, and still prized by collectors. But any archaeologist will tell you that an object outside its culture context loses its meaning. So go get the context, of the view from where the trains ran -- whether or not you have the inclination to invest in a 130-year-old dinner plate.

From old US 50, now deemed "the Loniliest Road in America," to dozens of other two-lane routes that crisscross the state, there are vistas that inspired Native Americans for thousands of years, pioneer routes, and ghost towns to explore. All are enriched by taking along Myrick's book. 

A lonely linear ridge gathering windblown sand -- still with the occasional dried-out fragments of wood crossties and a peppering of rusting spikes -- suddenly is understood as part of a lost spider web that connected Nevada. Its filaments of vanished iron were once the routes of empire, magic carpets of excitement for a journey to a new land, a new life, hopes of a better future. And cultural context? How often it ends in windblown sand vs. the nighttime glow of garish lights a couple mountain ranges away on the Vegas Strip. And now, dreams of gold vs. scarcity of essential water as Lake Mead goes dry.

Nevada's history is more expansive than the bandustling anonymity of casino "action" and overpriced shows "starring" overhyped celebrities in Reno and Vegas. Next time you go, do more than fantasize as you feed an insatiable slot machine. Go out and find your own vision of a John Ford Western or a classic Lucius Beebe narrative of a long-lost train ride. 

Nevada is a place that invites contemplation of unsustainable development, and perspective on what may and may not warrant greed masquerading as investing in dreams. It's a place for picking your guitar beneath a star-filled sky and becoming mindful of what really matters. Happy birthday, Nevada!

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Concerts, Club Gigs, Events, etc...

Are covered in the previous edition, and reach into November -- as far as we have compiled them so far.

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IMPORTANT REMINDER, and memo to the future

We've changed the original intro to this important final item. That's because the folks it really needs to reach would have blown it off before. We hope they won't do that, anyway.

So here ya go: Point is, a whole bunch of us are getting tired of looking out for everybody else's future. I mean, it isn't all that much fun for ANY of us to invest time in learning about and understanding all the very many things that are poised like vultures on a fence rail to eat our lunch. Or rob us blind. Or steal the future. And, when they do it, leave the masses wondering "what happened?" 

Because that is soooo predictable, AFTER too damn many of us found it too easy to be... distracted ...elsewhere.  You know somebody that you have the desire to tell, "ya know, you, uhh, pay attention to a lot of crap that really does not matter a whit to what kind of future we will share. You even waste MY energy with your endless foolishness."

That is what it's all about. Not "politics" or "midterms" or "partisan control." It's about the future. The entire U.S. House of Representatives gets elected THIS November. All of them! Plus, one-third of the U.S. Senate gets elected that very same day! November 8th is "Rovember." November 8th is THE day when the future of REVERSING Climate Change, or instead, turning corporate oligarchs loose to plunder the planet, will be decided. Not just "the day it is determined," but the day it is DECIDED. That's because YOU can choose to vote on November 8th, "Rovember 8th," on "stop the oligarchs" November 8th, on Save Democracy November 8th.

And frankly, if you don't choose to carry your part, a whole lot of other folks are damned tired of doing it for you. I, for one -- your editor here, whose past includes holding White House press credentials and covering government, politics, science, technology, aerospace, engineering, infrastructure, international relations, and doing investigative journalism to enable all that, and not "just" doing music and the arts -- well, I am pretty close to done with all of it except one thing.

My rant can be summed-up in this short paragraph: I am tired of being an advocate for others who never utilize the opportunity to work in a coalition that advocates for their own future together with the rest of us. So, if voter turnout is low on November 8th, you can stop looking for my public policy advocacy on a broad range of issues. I will be a voice only for reversing climate change. The rest of you can tell each other how shocked and disgusted you are about everything else that happens after you fail to vote.

Or you can get mad while it matters, get motivated while it can make a difference, use your mind, use your voice, use your passion, use your vote, and take action for your future. 

Check your VOTER REGISTRATION while there's still time. You can do it easily online by typing-in "check voter registration" and your city and state. You may need to re-register. Or if you have never been registered, it's time to change that.

Certain interests with ultra-rich backers are VERY actively engaged in purging voters from registration rolls, nationwide. There has never been anything like it in the United States of America in our lifetimes -- though the U.S. state of Georgia, four years ago, gave the registration purgers the model they are now using nationwide. It's all about winning by rigging the game. Only it isn't a game. It's power and control and who will wield it against rich interests -- who use politics for their self-serving wealth-grabbing -- at the expense of the rest of us.

The planet has a rapidly diminishing window to stop runaway climate change. Yet some interests continue to deny that it is happening at all, and will profit from despoiling the entire world unless we, the people, stop them. 

Subterfuge, distraction, diversion, denial, Big Lies, outlandishly outrageous claims, every unimaginably ridiculous premise, exploitation of differences through scares and fears, and, when all that fails, overt threats against all who disagree, are the leading tactics of those who don't want you to vote.

Whether your top concerns are reproductive freedom or a future worth having and handing-off to future generations, or something else entirely, it all comes down to one thing: democracy must be preserved, defended, nurtured, and ultimately protected from those who would trample it. Ignore that, and fascism replaces democracy.

Check your VOTER status, and be sure you are qualified and thoroughly informed to vote this November. This is the most important "midterm" election cycle in 90 years, and the most consequential we may ever face.

~ Lawrence Wines, editor

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Resources / Navigation / Contacting us / finding what you want in current, recent, or archived Guide editions 

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On mobile devices, click "view web edition" to bring-up the left side bar with navigation tools. That gives you direct access to click your way to all recent editions. It's easy to bring-up month-by-month archives to everything -- last year, a decade ago, so far this year, and each previous year.

It's all there, since we first moved The Guide (with its former name) to Blogspot. 

Does that mean you need to find Marty and Doc's DeLorean time machine? 

Because, geez, THAT was back when Rin-Tin-Tin hadn't gotten his second "tin" from Tin Pan Alley

... and you watched TV on a big box that bombarded you with non-ionizing radiation from its cathode ray tube if you sat close to it, instead of like nowadays, getting your inescapable non-ionizing radiation from 5g, wherever you sit

... and 

... and "the pandemic" meant 1918

... anyway, The Guide has been around a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG time! So you can escape into the musical wonderments of this current edition, AND/OR you can go far enough back to escape whatever is the current lunacy du jour, and explore MANY THOUSANDS of feature stories, musical explorations, band and artist descriptions, and assorted fascinating items we have published through the years for your perusal and enjoyment.

HINT: We often get feedback like this regarding the archive:

"We were talking about how we first met. We disagreed about who was playing that night. We were pretty distracted by each other. So we deep dived in your archive and we found everything about that night!!! It even let us figure out a bunch of our important dates--most of them were musical and it sure was fun to relive those times!!!"

 

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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers -- and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.

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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you come back from a masked safari to fetch your groceries, or get a hankerin' for a real or a virtual tuneful sojourn at (or from) a quality venue, or whatever version of hittin' the road for the festival circuit or a tuneful tour.

Toodles!

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Octuarial October: no time to "fall" as the leaves turn! Friday edition, October 14 2022

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[Updated with additions, 5:51 pm, Oct 14]

A new roots music festival, concerts in the venues and online, Stephanie Miller's "Sexy Liberal - Save Democracy" comedy tour concludes with an L.A. performance, plus... we remember Loretta Lynn, and -- well, take a look!

All the EVENTS follow the NEWS, then we wrap it up with an editorial about a simple, profound act to assure we have a future.

Let's get started!

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Folk legend Joan Baez helping Ukraine's children

Her art funds relief, medical care for war-ravaged nation's children

"Joan Baez stopped singing a couple of years ago, but she is a fabulous portrait artist. She did a portrait of Ukrainian President Zelinskyy," relates American Dr. Irwin Redlener, world-renowned infectious disease expert.

He continues, "She did prints of that portrait and raised a lot of money. We've been friends a long time. She recruited me to go to Poland and Ukraine to help decide what to do with the money, how it could best help. Once here, I was hooked."

Dr. Redlener is currently helping in a Ukrainian hospital that's been moved underground, to protect it from continuing Russian missile attacks on Ukraine's civilian population. Patients there have been wounded, including many children, and medical personnel are struggling to treat them without anyone suffering more wounds as attacks continue from Russian invaders.

To learn more or contribute to the war relief project for children started by Joan Baez, go to:

Ukraine Childrens Action Project
www.ukrainecap.org
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Int'l Acoustic Music Awards has two timely items 

New Folk & Acoustic Spotify Public Playlist

First, the International Acoustic Music Awards' "New Folk & Acoustic Spotify Public Playlist" has been released, featuring their winners and past winners. It includes Buffalo Rose, Ellis Paul, Jonatha Brooke, Will Ackerman, Jeff Oster & Tom Eaton (This year's Grammy Nominee), Rod Abernethy, Frank J Myers, Jonathan Edwards, Ricky Kej (This year's Grammy Winner), and more.  You can click their "like" link for their playlist and listen free.

IAMA's latest news has become a frequently shared article on the Music Connection magazine site. IAMA tells us, "We'd be grateful if you could take a moment and weigh-in on the matter. Read the article here."
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Awards competition deadline is Nov 10

Second, you can enter the 19th Annual IAMA (International Acoustic Music Awards) by November 10, 2022, or earlier: https://inacoustic.com/enter-here/

IAMA is sponsored by: Solid State Logic (SSL), New Music Weekly, Loggins Promotion, Airplay Access, Ditto Music, Sirius XM Radio, Acoustic Café Radio Show, Paige Capo, Make Music Matter, Kari Estrin Management & Consulting, and more.

Why enter IAMA?

• Get recognized as a music artist and for your music: Best Male Artist, Best Female, Group, etc.
• Winning artists will appear on the IAMA compilation CD.
• Winning artists will receive radio airplay.
• Gain music industry exposure and more.

Full info at: https://www.inacoustic.com
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Remembering Loretta Lynn

"Just write a poem and put a little melody to it. You girls can do it, probably better than I can. But I'll give you a run for your money!"

~ Loretta Lynn, who died this past week at age 90.

You need to to look way back, to a prior era, to realize Loretta as an artist changed everything.  Before her, women stars -- Patsy Cline, Kitty Wells, and so many other gold- and platinum-sellers -- did not write their own songs. Change came overnight: After Loretta Lynn began writing hits that were autobiographical, all women artists were expected to have originals.

She was an early advocate for feminism. Her song, "The Pill," asserted women could be in charge of family planning and shocked the conservative mind. "In the Bible Belt, they would preach against it [the record] on Sunday, and on Monday morning the congregation would go out and buy it to see what was wrong with it. That made it a hit," said Loretta.

She sang with everyone from Ernest Tubb to Ray Charles, Conway Twitty to Willie Nelson to Patsy Cline. She was long ago inducted into the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame. President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Loretta Lynn, even after fame, acclaim, GRAMMYS, Gold records, a Hollywood movie about her life -- "Coal Miner's Daughter," starring Sissy Spacek -- always kept her sense of wonder and gratitude. And her accent was the real deal, from her upbringing in Butcher Holler. It was all a mosaic of authenticity integral with her persona, and not the fahke tew-wang of tudday's Nashville creatures. 

The world will find plenty more music stars to idolize, but when it comes to those we can truly admire? Loretta Lynn has long held an esteemed place in that hallowed pantheon where other artists join fans to pay homage.
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Oligarchy Grocery

Today's business news headline: "Kroger to buy Albertsons for $24.6 billion."

Any grocery chain you knew growing up is now part of one or the other of these two corporate giants. Safeway, Piggly Wiggly, Food Giant. Market Basket. Food Lion. They're all vanished into Borg-like assililations. And now an ultimate megamerger is about to generate billions in corporate debt for its bloated, merged, impending self-inflicted indigestion in the form of "acquisition cost" -- that will be passed-along in ever-higher food prices to "the consumer," their dehumanizing euphemism for all of us. Even though these machinations of the super rich will do what they always do: (a) cut jobs and make remaining employees work longer, salaried, and therefore unpaid hours (b) force us to go to more stressful, unstaffed self-checkouts that accept no argument when the shelf price was less than the robot is demanding, and (c) use the power of their corporacratic monopoly to erode worker benefits gained through hard-fought union contracts.

So, what to do? Raise hell about this with your Member of Congress now, and get it blocked! Seriously, tell your lawmaker, "No more mega-mergers! Stop this one!" 

Or, you can decide "That's too much to bother with." Which likely means you'll wait until your options to buy ANYTHING are (a) Wal-Mart, (b) Amazon, or (c) roadside minimarts that stock only burnt-dried wire-rack hot dogs, preservative-impregnated chips, and diabetes-inducing soda, but no fresh food. Likely your coming options -- IF you can safely pull into a roadside strip mall without being runover by a driverless big rig truck with data stream hiccups on its way from the processing plant to the 500-acre warehouse.

There are songs in all that waiting impatiently to be written. Think of "Little Boxes" when runaway cookie-cutter suburban development was the issue...

Or maybe you have a bigger issue. November 8th is voting day. Don't sit home.
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Events...

This weekend's new roots music fest: Sonic Boom

Sat, Oct 15, FESTIVAL

"PARAMOUNT RANCH SONIC BOOM MUSIC FESTIVAL" is a formidable first-time venture by folks you know, Tiny Porch Concerts, with support from the Santa Monica Mountains Fund. It happens at the same site as the longtime home of the springtime "Topanga Banjo•Fiddle Contest & Folk Festival."  (No, the "TBFC" organization is not involved.)  This is being promoted as "a one-of-a-kind music festival" hosted and largely organized by L.A.'s own DUSTBOWL REVIVAL. Therefore, do not assume you can catch it next year -- it may only happen once!

It kicks off with gates opening at 11 am,  first performance at noon, at Paramount Ranch, 2903 Cornell Rd, Agoura Hills, CA 91301.

Featured are New Orleans' famous REBIRTH BRASS BAND, DUSTBOWL REVIVAL, DOM FLEMMONS, as well as YOSMEL MONTEJOY Y LA CALIENTE, EAGLE ROCK GOSPEL SINGERS, and WATER TOWER.

 Local craft vendors, food trucks, craft beer, wine, kids' activities and unique jamming experiences throughout the festival grounds will all ensue.

Don't let history confuse you. If you've heard of "Sonic Boom" before this, that was in the context of "Colorado's Premier Electronic Music Festival" at Hummingbird Ranch in the beautiful Spanish Peaks Country of the Rocky Mountains. This Sonic Boom is roots music, NOT electronica.

□ The $85 VIP tix are sold out.
■ General admission, $45 -- includes parking and admission to the ranch.
■ Child tix, ages 4-12, $20; free under age 4.

A portion of your ticket purchase will support the restoration of Paramount Ranch, following the loss of the historic movie-set Old Western town to the disastrous Woolsey Fire in 2018.

Tix and info: https://www.betterunite.com/sonicboom
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Edwards Air Force Base Open House & Air Show

Not music, but a long-absent, big deal event


Sat & Sun, Oct 15 & 16; FREE general admission; gates open 8-11 am ONLY, no admission after 11 am.

Edwards is home to NASA's Neil Armstrong Flight Research Center. It's also where the Air Force flight-tests everything, and has its Test Pilot School. Yes, that's the USAF counterpart of the Navy's Top Gun school you know from two Tom Cruise movies.

Edwards was famous for its annual open house. But that ended after 9/11, when security fences went up. This weekend brings the first real return of the decades-long tradition that's been absent for 20 years.

2022 marks the 75th anniversary of the United States Air Force, while October 14, 2022 marks 75 years of breaking the sound barrier over the sky above Edwards. During this weekend, the event will pay homage to both legacies with historic aircraft and sonic booms, mixed with the latest in cutting-edge aviation.

Sure, the military is currently having a tough time meeting its required recruiting numbers. Two decades of unending, unwinnable, and ultimately useless wars will do that to a country. So some may see the weekend of blinding-fast, low flybys, aerial acrobatic demonstrations, and thunderous sonic booms over the desert's dry lakebeds -- well, cynically.

The military consumes more of the federal budget than anything else except a nebulous total of "entitlements" that are mostly unrelated. So this is an opportunity to go see just what it is they do with all that money. Some of it, anyway. Just put the event in your browser and you'll find what gate to use, when to go each day, and what you can expect to see.

You can take the I-5 or 405 north to the 14 Freeway, and exit at Rosamond Boulevard. Or from the Inland Empire, head over Cajon Pass on I-15, and chrck online to see whether you can traverse the desert on 89th St East, North to a different gate.

There is more than a touch of irony at work. You can catch the roots music "Sonic Boom" music festival on Saturday in Agoura Hills -- which has nothing to do with high tech aviation (see our festival feature story) -- and then go out to the Edwards Open House / Airshow on Sunday. Aside from the cost of gasoline (twice as much in California as anywhere else), the airshow has free tickets online.
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Live in the venues &/or online...

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■ At the Pasadena Folk Music Society

Sun, Oct 16, 2022, live online concert, 4 pm:
JOHN McCUTCHEON, celebrating 50 years as a folk music icon, returns to the Pasadena Folk Music Society with another four-show series of live streamed concerts similar to those he presented there lastspring.
    Oct 16 is an all-request show, enriched by McCutcheon’s telling the stories behind the songs. Ticket buyers can request a song.
     John McCutcheon continues the series Sun, Nov 13, debuting several songs he has co-written with Tom ("Last Thing on My Mind") Paxton in the past two years and showcase one that’s already been released to worldwide acclaim: "Ukrainian Now."
     The series finale is Sun, Dec. 11, with “Winter Solstice: A Holiday Concert with John McCutcheon."
     Ticket-holders get links for watching the shows live and also for replay any time in the 48 hours afterwards. The replay option allows enjoying the show a second time, or with pauses on-demand to catch the wonderful lyrics better.
     A portion of the ticket sales benefit the Pasadena Folk Music Society, to help cover costs of returning with future in-person concerts at Caltech in Pasadena, CA.
     Series producers say, "We are partnering with John for this series as we did for some well-received online shows last spring. From those live streams, we know we can expect smooth audio-visual logistics and an enjoyable show, almost as if sitting in McCutcheon’s living room with him."
*  Tix: regular single-concert ticket price is $20, plus $4.60 in fees. The bundled ticket for the remaining three shows is $50, plus $11.50 in fees. Lower single-ticket prices are available for students and unemployed people. Other options include “family/household” and “music supporter” tickets.
*  Info & tix at: https://pasadenafolkmusicsociety.org
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■ At The Coffee Gallery Backstage, 2029 N Lake Av, Altadena CA 91001; Reservations by phone only, at 626-798-6236; info, www.coffeegallery.com

□ Masks and Vaccination cards are required to attend Coffee Gallery Backstage Concerts.

• Fri, Oct 14, 8 pm - BETH FITCHET WOOD & STEVE WOOD + JODI SIEGEL. $20.

• Sat, Oct 15, 2 pm matinee AND 6 pm evening shows - LED ZEPAGAIN plays all-acoustic renditions of the famous rock band's hits. Either show, $25.

• Tue, Oct 18, 8 pm - MAIAH WYNNE, national traveling singer. $20.

• Thu, Oct 20, 7 pm - THE ROADHOUSE SERIES PRESENTS: "A Tribute to the Americana Music Movement," with 17 artists doing songs from the Carter Family to Brandi Carlisle. $20.

• Thu, Oct 27, 8 pm - CODY BRYANT, MARK BRIDGEFORD, CAMPBELL FEST. $20.

• Sun, Oct 30, 3 pm Matinee - "A 'DENA HOME COMPANION" is a multiartist “'dena” (Pasadena/Altadena/Eagle Rock-a-dena) spin on Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion," featuring comedy and classic American songs. $20.

•Fri, Nov 11, 8 pm -   TALL MEN GROUP, the ensemble of ndividual accomplished songwriters, Edward Tree, Severin Brown, John Stowers, Marty Axelrod, introducing brand new songs and honoring the group’s founder, brother and chef Jimmy Yessian, lost to cancer in 2021. $20.
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■ At McCabe's concert hall, in back of the landmark music store, 3101 Pico No, Santa Monica CA; advance tix online,  https://www.mccabes.com

□ Masks and Vaccination cards are required to attend McCabe’s Concerts.

▪Fri & Sat, Oct 14 & 15: SOLD OUT - HOT TUNA Acoustic.

▪Fri & Sat, Oct 21 & 22: SOLD OUT - JOHN DOE FOLK TRIO.

▪Sun, Oct 30, 8 pm - SONGWRITERS SHOWCASE w/ Rick Shea, Tony Gilkyson and Cindy Lee Berryhill. $20.

▪ Nov 5, 8 pm - Crys Matthews & Heather Mae. $25.

▪ Nov 12, 8 pm - Albert Lee
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■ At The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1201 W Malvern Av, Fullerton, CA 92833; tix & info, 714-738-6595, TheMuck.org

Thu, Oct 20, 7:30 pm - PETER BRANDON: after a three year Covid hiatus, and fresh off a Vegas Residency, Fullerton's prodigal son returns home for a night of Country music.

Thu, Oct 27, 7:30 pm - BEYOND THE BLACK VEIL:  A Halloween inspired seance conjuring the spirits that inhabit the Muck.

Sun. Oct 30, 12-4 pm - "Día de los Muertos Festival" is Free and open to the public. The Muckenthaler invites everyone to join them to celebrate Día de los Muertos, with festive activities for the whole family, food, drinks, live music, local artisans, and arts and crafts for kids.

Nov 5-6, 10 am-4 pm - annual "Artistic License Fair" is Free to attend. Celebrating 28 years, the Fair is a fine crafts show featuring the highly collected work of over fifty L.A., Orange, and Riverside County artisans.

Thu, Dec 15 - DARDEN: this will be the fifth year of the "Darden Holiday extravaganza" at the Muck and its filled with all of your favorite Christmas classics all Dardened up.

Thu, Dec 22 - JIM "KIMO" WEST: Called "The World's Greatest Slack Key Guitarist," he turns his instrument toward the holidays for this Hawaiian-themed evening of music.
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■ Elsewhere...

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JAMES LEE STANLEY is playing two local venues...

Sat, Oct 15, 7:30 pm , at Boulevard Music in Culver City
     and
Nov 12, 7 pm, at Kulak's Woodshed in North Hollywood.
     Info:
His documentary, winner of the Peoples Choice Award, at the London Lift Off Film Festival: https://jamesleestanley.com/product/the-opening-act-the-extraordinary-journey-of-james-lee-stanley

James also has a NEW FREE ARTIST RESOURCE BLOG: www.datamusicata.com
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Sat, Oct 22, 2 pm & 8 pm - PASADENA SYMPHONY presents its 2022-23 season opening night with a program of Mozart & Saint-Saëns, in Ambassador Auditoritum, Pasadena CA

     Mozart’s tempestuous Symphony No. 39 opens the 22/23 season with internationally acclaimed conductor Vinay Parameswaran at the helm. Plus, “one of the biggest pianistic talents to have emerged in this country in the last 25 years” (Baltimore Sun), Terrence Wilson returns to the Ambassador stage for Saint-Saëns' Piano Concerto No. 2.
     The third annual "Composer's Showcase" also returns with award-winning violist-composer Nokuthula Ngwenyama’s "Primal Message" asking – what should we put in humanity’s first message in a bottle sent 25,000 light years away?
     Featuring:
Vinay Parameswaran, conductor
Terrence Wilson, piano
 Nokuthula Ngwenyama  Primal Message for String Orchestra, Harp, and PercussionSaint-SaënsPiano Concerto No. 2RossiniOverture to La scala di setaMozart Symphony No. 39
     Tix at: 626-793-7172 or pasadenasymphony-pops.org
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Attend this event live or pay-per-view online:
Sat, Oct 22, 2022, 8 pm - STEPHANIE MILLER’s "SEXY LIBERAL SAVE DEMOCRACY TOUR" concludes with its L.A. show at the Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Bl, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
     Damn few people can make you laugh at America's ridiculously polarized state of affairs. Most of those people are in this show: Stephanie, John Fugelsang, the Frangela duo, and Hal Sparks. Previous stops in D.C. and Chicago have brought surprise guests, too. Since L.A. is the only one doing pay-per-view as well as in-person, you can expect a lot. (That pay-per-view option is $20 and allows unlimited watching for a month.)
 • Ppv tix: https://sexyliberal.com/
• Venue tix also at: https://www.stubhub.com/stephanie-miller-beverly-hills-tickets-10-22-2022/event/150486006/
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Sun, Oct 23, 2022, 5:30 pm:
JOHN DOE plays the Zebulon Cafe, 2478 Fletcher Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90039
     He has recorded 8 solo records with numerous renowned singers and players, recently including Patty Griffin, Dan Auerbach, Aimee Mann, Don Was, Kathleen Edwards and Greg Liesz. That follows his long ago leadership of the band X.
     He has appeared in over 50 films and television productions, with some of his most notable roles in "Road House," "Georgia," "Roadside Prophets," "Great Balls of Fire," "Pure Country," and "Roswell." He continues to act these days but more sporadically as his touring schedule has become more demanding. Other musical side projects include work with the Knitters, Jill Sobule and The Sadies. He continues to write poetry and has even taught workshops from time to time. He currently lives in Austin, TX.
*  Tix start at $30.90 at https://zebulon.la ; hurry, this will sell-out early.
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IMPORTANT REMINDER, and memo to the future

We've changed the original intro to this important final item. That's because the folks it really needs to reach would have blown it off before. We hope they won't do that, anyway.

So here ya go: Point is, a whole bunch of us are getting tired of looking out for everybody else's future. I mean, it isn't all that much fun for ANY of us to invest time in learning about and understanding all the very many things that are poised like vultures on a fence rail to eat our lunch. Or rob us blind. Or steal the future. And, when they do it, leave the masses wondering "what happened?" 

Because that is soooo predictable, AFTER too damn many of us found it too easy to be... distracted ...elsewhere.  You know somebody that you have the desire to tell, "ya know, you, uhh, pay attention to a lot of crap that really does not matter a whit to what kind of future we will share. You even waste MY energy with your endless foolishness."

That is what it's all about. Not "politics" or "midterms" or "partisan control." It's about the future. The entire U.S. House of Representatives gets elected THIS November. All of them! Plus, one-third of the U.S. Senate gets elected that very same day! November 8th is "Rovember." November 8th is THE day when the future of REVERSING Climate Change, or instead, turning corporate oligarchs loose to plunder the planet, will be decided. Not just "the day it is determined," but the day it is DECIDED. That's because YOU can choose to vote on November 8th, "Rovember 8th," on "stop the oligarchs" November 8th, on Save Democracy November 8th.

And frankly, if you don't choose to carry your part, a whole lot of other folks are damned tired of doing it for you. I, for one -- your editor here, whose past includes holding White House press credentials and covering government, politics, science, technology, aerospace, engineering, infrastructure, international relations, and doing investigative journalism to enable all that, and not "just" doing music and the arts -- well, I am pretty close to done with all of it except one thing.

My rant can be summed-up in this short paragraph: I am tired of being an advocate for others who never utilize the opportunity to work in a coalition that advocates for their own future together with the rest of us. So, if voter turnout is low on November 8th, you can stop looking for my public policy advocacy on a broad range of issues. I will be a voice only for reversing climate change. The rest of you can tell each other how shocked and disgusted you are about everything else that happens after you fail to vote.

Or you can get mad while it matters, get motivated while it can make a difference, use your mind, use your voice, use your passion, use your vote, and take action for your future. 

Check your VOTER REGISTRATION while there's still time. You can do it easily online by typing-in "check voter registration" and your city and state. You may need to re-register. Or if you have never been registered, it's time to change that.

Certain interests with ultra-rich backers are VERY actively engaged in purging voters from registration rolls, nationwide. There has never been anything like it in the United States of America in our lifetimes -- though the U.S. state of Georgia, four years ago, gave the registration purgers the model they are now using nationwide. It's all about winning by rigging the game. Only it isn't a game. It's power and control and who will wield it against rich interests -- who use politics for their self-serving wealth-grabbing -- at the expense of the rest of us.

The planet has a rapidly diminishing window to stop runaway climate change. Yet some interests continue to deny that it is happening at all, and will profit from despoiling the entire world unless we, the people, stop them. 

Subterfuge, distraction, diversion, denial, Big Lies, outlandishly outrageous claims, every unimaginably ridiculous premise, exploitation of differences through scares and fears, and, when all that fails, overt threats against all who disagree, are the leading tactics of those who don't want you to vote.

Whether your top concerns are reproductive freedom or a future worth having and handing-off to future generations, or something else entirely, it all comes down to one thing: democracy must be preserved, defended, nurtured, and ultimately protected from those who would trample it. Ignore that, and fascism replaces democracy.

Check your VOTER status, and be sure you are qualified and thoroughly informed to vote this November. This is the most important "midterm" election cycle in 90 years, and the most consequential we may ever face.

~ Lawrence Wines, editor

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Resources / Navigation / Contacting us / finding what you want in current, recent, or archived Guide editions 

MOBILE-DEVICE-FRIENDLY

editions load quickly at

www.acousticmusic.net 

Or at

www.acousticamericana.blogspot.com

On mobile devices, click "view web edition" to bring-up the left side bar with navigation tools. That gives you direct access to click your way to all recent editions. It's easy to bring-up month-by-month archives to everything -- last year, a decade ago, so far this year, and each previous year.

It's all there, since we first moved The Guide (with its former name) to Blogspot. 

Does that mean you need to find Marty and Doc's DeLorean time machine? 

Because, geez, THAT was back when Rin-Tin-Tin hadn't gotten his second "tin" from Tin Pan Alley

... and you watched TV on a big box that bombarded you with non-ionizing radiation from its cathode ray tube if you sat close to it, instead of like nowadays, getting your inescapable non-ionizing radiation from 5g, wherever you sit

... and 

... and "the pandemic" meant 1918

... anyway, The Guide has been around a LOOOOONNNNNGGGG time! So you can escape into the musical wonderments of this current edition, AND/OR you can go far enough back to escape whatever is the current lunacy du jour, and explore MANY THOUSANDS of feature stories, musical explorations, band and artist descriptions, and assorted fascinating items we have published through the years for your perusal and enjoyment.

HINT: We often get feedback like this regarding the archive:

"We were talking about how we first met. We disagreed about who was playing that night. We were pretty distracted by each other. So we deep dived in your archive and we found everything about that night!!! It even let us figure out a bunch of our important dates--most of them were musical and it sure was fun to relive those times!!!"

 

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CONTACT US -- Post Comments / Send Questions / say Howdy at:

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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS – and views of interest to artists everywhere – more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers -- and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music. That includes both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues (now undergoing a major update), and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues from the monumentally large to the intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops, conferences, and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the swamp water roots of the blues and the bright lights of where the music is headed now.

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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell. The cyber porch'll be here anytime you come back from a masked safari to fetch your groceries, or get a hankerin' for a real or a virtual tuneful sojourn at (or from) a quality venue, or whatever version of hittin' the road for the festival circuit or a tuneful tour.

Toodles!

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