Lonesome, Onry and Mean had been hearing about the new KOKE-FM progressive country station in Austin for a few weeks. One friend in particular kept raving about the station, so today we finally sauntered over to KOKE-FM (99.3) on the world wide web.

Back in the day when we were in Radio/Television/Film school at UT-Austin, KOKE-FM broke the mold for country radio when it announced its progressive country format that featured not only Waylon, Willie, Coe, Jerry Jeff, Jimmy Buffett, Michael Murphy, and Asleep at the Wheel, but also corralled such outlaws as Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen and the newly formed Gram Parsons band with Emmylou Harris.

There was also space for Austin treasures like Freda and the Firedogs and Greezy Wheels.

More »

Photo by Jason Wolter

Jason Isbell (left) and Amanda Shires (right) are both more deserving than Chorney.

The small world of Americana music is all a-twitter over New Jersey woman Linda Chorney's nomination for a Grammy in the Americana category. In case you haven't been following the story, Chorney discovered a way to game the system and managed to convince quite a number of Grammy voters (who obviously are a little under-educated and under-exposed to the Americana genre) to vote for her tepid album, Emotional Jukebox, to get it on the final ballot in spite of it not having sold a single unit so far according to Sound Scan, the official industry tabulator of album sales.

According to interviews she's given, Chorney seems to have very little working knowledge of Americana or the artists in it. The Americana Music Association, which normally issues a boilerplate congratulatory statement to all the nominees, has not done so this year and speculation is that the association is not happy about Chorney's nomination since she is not a member of the organization and has never attended any of the annual events.

Frankly, we don't care if she's a member of the AMA or not; what bugs us about Chorney's gameswomanship is that she has knocked a number of exemplary albums out of a chance to win. And we'll bet she hasn't heard a damned one of them. So here's a list for you, Linda, of people you are basically screwing over. Like we said, do the right thing and withdraw your nomination.

More »

The comments sections on several articles about Linda Chorney, the woman who gamed the system and social networked her way onto the final Grammy ballot in the Americana category, tend to be pretty negative, although Chorney's publicist, husband and a few friends are trying to staunch the flow of irate bile that has gushed like BP's Gulf well last year.

Lonesome, Onry and Mean has been following Americana music since long before we first went to work in country radio in the early Seventies, and we've never witnessed anything quite as shameful as Chorney's calculated internet march to the Grammy ballot. We were revolted by our first listen to Chorney's tepid folky Emotional Jukebox. We can think of a handful of women in Houston who could kick Chorney's musical ass with one arm behind their backs.

More »

The subtle front page of Chorney's website.

As if the Grammys didn't have enough credibility issues, NARAS, the organization that controls the process, has left a loophole large enough for a complete unknown to manipulate her way onto the final ballot in the Americana category.

The news broke two days ago in Variety that virtual unknown Linda Chorney had employed the organization's interactive Grammy 365 site to connect with voting members and get her music heard. Somehow she got enough members to vote for her to get her album Emotional Jukebox on the final ballot with Emmylou Harris, Levon Helm, Ry Cooder, and Lucinda Williams, who have collected among themselves 23 Grammys.

On one hand, we have to applaud Chorney for her effort and determination and for her ability to work the system to her advantage. On the other hand, after hearing her music, we want to projectile vomit.

More »

OK, Facebook finally went too far last night when it casually offered me a chance to "like" Yoko Ono. Six others I'm somehow connected with via F-book (and I'm starting to wonder why I'm connected to them at all) "like" the 78-year old Mrs. Lennon.

So when does an "artist" of Yoko's fame and fortune decide the time has come to stick up a Facebook page so people can "like" them? Yoko currently has some of her work showing at Colton-Farb Gallery here, so it seems she's still got plenty of connections to get her rather blasé art out to that section of the world with enough money in the bank to write her a fat check for the privilege of having something with "Yoko Ono" scrawled across a corner on their walls.

Could it be something on the part of her publicists or backers who (accurately) perceive that she is not and will never be as popular as her deceased husband? If she somehow gets 8,000,000 "likes" on Facebook, I'm willing to bet she'd still not have one one-hundredth of the "likes" John can pull in spite of his bad boy sneer.

More »

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray

Unions Are Basically Legalized Mafia: Sarah Chang, a gorgeous and talented young violinist, tried to perform a recital in Detroit this week. Unfortunately for her, the classical music unions happen to be on strike in Detroit. Chang was probably not even aware of this fact, but she became very aware of it indeed when the hate mail started pouring in.

Classical unions don't fuck around. These folks harassed her via her cell phone, email address, and social media pages (like Twitter and Facebook) all for the heinous crime of being about to play a gig as part of her tour. We can't see how playing said gig would have affected the Detroit musicians at all, but that didn't stop them from calling her a scab and saying she should hang herself.

Needless to say, Chang opted to skip Detroit. Yeah, we don't blame her. Yo-Yo Ma better keep his ass away too, unless he wants a cello case full of fish. It's an old-school message, Mr. Ma. Don't defy the five families. Uh, unions. We meant "unions."

More »

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray

Gene Simmons Is Donald Trump In Makeup: Fails has never been a big KISS fan, but we can't imagine watching Gene Simmons' behavior makes being one any easier. If you're a die-hard KISS fan, watching his douchey whoring and cutthroat CEO tactics must be difficult, as is knowing that KISS was not a spontaneous creation by passionate musicians but a calculated, meticulously crafted construction specifically designed to appeal to a certain demographic.

No wonder KISS' music is so loved by middle-aged lawyers and insurance salesmen; it was designed by someone who thinks like them. (Well, some of the songs Ace and Paul wrote were pretty good.) Yep, turns out they're more of a spiritual predecessor to Lady Gaga than anything else, minus the self-parody.

Gene thinks the record labels should be spending themselves into oblivion relentlessly chasing after illegal file-sharers and other music pirates, despite the fact that numerous studies have shown that a) file sharers tend to spend more on music than those who don't partake in peer-to-peer file sharing; and b) suing those folks has proven ridiculously costly, with the record industry throwing millions of dollars into numerous lawsuits only to reap mere thousands by doing so.

More »

Photo illustrations by John Seaborn Gray

Hooray! Now Your Feet Are Boring, Too!: A clothing designer called Keep took a whole bunch of ecstasy (probably) and then invited Animal Collective's Avery Tare to design some shoes for them. By "design," we of course mean "scribble on some plain beige loafers which can then be sold for 75 fucking dollars."

He didn't even cover the whole shoe, instead choosing to draw a "custom printed ghost pattern" that looks like a blue Shyguy from Super Mario Brothers 2. Advance sales will also come with a cassette tape (of course) of unreleased music for you to drowse off to, and you'd think that would be enough twee douchery for your buck, but oh, there's more.

It wouldn't be a smug hipster venture if the proceeds weren't going to some useless-ass charity, and wouldn't you know it, those proceeds are going to the Socorro Island Preservation Fund, which is a fund started by precious, wealthy Californians who want to make sure their offshore reefs stay pretty while they're out scuba diving and not giving money to starving/sick people.

More »

That's Enough, Carlos Santana: Carlos Santana has to be one of the most overrated rock artists of all time. Never once has his noodly, choogly brand of boring stoner-rock managed to ignite even the tiniest spark of interest for Fails.

Yeah, the guy's got some serious guitar chops. But as any non-guitar-player who has tried to listen to the self-indulgent guitar masturbatings of Santana, Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, chops ain't much without the skill to use them towards making an interesting song.

Santana has recorded a new album, and good God in Heaven, it is just awful. He's watered down his already-tepid sound even more to where even Dave Matthews would listen and say, "Holy shit, can we get a little bit of an edge here, please?"

More »

Taylor and Kanye Need To Move the Hell On: The MTV Video Music Awards happened this past Sunday, so you had to know there was going to be at least one sizable fail in there somewhere, and of course they didn't disappoint. Taylor Swift took the stage and sang a melodramatic tune she'd written chronicling Kanye West's onstage interruption of her VMA acceptance speech last year. She appears to be forgiving him? This comes on the heels of Kanye's equally melodramatic Twitter outburst/apology, which ended with "It starts with this: Taylor, I'm sorry."

Let's just think back for a minute here. Last year, did Kanye storm the stage, rip the award from her hands and beat her into a coma with it? No, all he did was drunkenly interrupt her. A dick move, to be sure, but hardly a national disaster. West apologized, Swift gained some free publicity, and life went on.

There is no reason why we still need to be hearing about this a year later. Performers have beaten cancer and made less of a big deal about it.

More »