Filed under: free music friday, mp3 | Tags: caitlin rose, dead flowers EP, deer tick, jonny corndawg, justin townes earle, pepi ginsberg, tristen
Caitlin Rose presents
a Free Music Friday special
This Friday we’ve done things a little differently by inviting our favourite hard-talking, fast-drinking country singer – the mighty Caitlin Rose of Nashville, Tennessee – to pick five songs she loves and tell us about them. With her 2008 EP Dead Flowers finally getting a well-deserved UK release next Monday through Names Records (the rave reviews are pouring in) and the promise of a full-length album in the not too distant future, Caitlin looks set to have a storming 2010. You can download the EP’s opening track ‘Shotgun Wedding’ here to see what all the fuss is about while you check out her playlist, where tracks from fellow Nashville songwriter Tristen and the ever fabulous Pepi Ginsberg rub shoulders with those of – gasp! – menfolk like Justin Townes Earle, Deer Tick and Jonny Corndawg.
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Tristen
‘Wicked Heart’
[from the 2009 self-released EP Deceivers Are Achievers]
I played my first show with Tristen almost three years ago. She’d moved to Nashville from Chicago a year prior though I’d never met her. Sometimes I say she was the first female artist in Nashville that was too good for me to dislike. I’m not good at making friends, but was somehow coaxed into talking to her that night. After gushing about how great she was and calling her a “miniature Tom Petty”, I was completely open to the idea of this new friend and potential writing partner. She’s one of my favorite people to sing with especially when it’s this song.
FREE MP3: Tristen, ‘Wicked Heart’
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Jonny Corndawg
‘Oversteppin’
[from the 2007 self-released album I’m Not Ready To Be A Daddy]
I first heard Jonny play when I was 16. My space-cadet-noise-rock friend, Bridget, liked to hang out at the what is probably the diviest dive in Nashville, the Springwater. Jonny liked to tour the country on his motorcycle and whenever he was coming through town he’d end up there. It was a fitting place for a funny guy with a guitar who played borderline offensive songs for the drunkest people in Nashville. How could that not work out? David Allen Coe, anyone?
So she snuck me in one night to see Jonny play. I heard him do ‘Chevy Beretta’ and he’s been one of my favourite songwriters ever since. I think I wrote him a letter about it. ‘Oversteppin’ is beautiful. As silly-white-trash as the subject matter can sound, it’s delivered with a sincerity that shows that if he has not gone through these things himself, he clearly understands the people who do. It’s no Big & Rich singing blue collar anthems. Jonny’s music and his peculiarly beautiful leatherwork is pure folk art, not the bullshit kind that they sell at pricy antique malls or folk festivals, but the kind that, in a crude or ramshackle way, can inimitably and honestly define a real piece of America. His website is also amazing.
FREE MP3: Jonny Corndawg, ‘Oversteppin’
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Deer Tick
‘Little White Lies’
[from the 2009 Partisan Records album Born On Flag Day]
I saw Deer Tick for the first time back in October when Jonny Corndawg was on tour with them. He had asked me to come out to the show and sing back up on ‘Chevy Beretta’ and said the band was backing him on a few songs and that was something I didn’t want to miss. This girl told John from DT that I did a version of ‘Dead Flowers’ as well and he politely asked if I would like to sing it with them. He even let me take the second verse and sing bad notes all over the following chorus. The rest of the set was incredible and hands down my favourite show of 2009. Favourite record too.
FREE MP3: Deer Tick, ‘Little White Lies’
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Pepi Ginsberg
‘Coca Cola’
[from the 2010 Park The Van Records album East Is East]
I’m not all that familiar with Pepi’s songs, but I know I enjoy ‘Coca Cola’. We’re playing a show together next week [in Nashville]. It’s going to be on “anti Valentines day”, which I’ve decided is the 16th of February. I love, “Hey Coca Cola / have another, it’s on me.” Pepi also has the grooviest music videos I’ve ever seen.
FREE MP3: Pepi Ginsberg, ‘Coca Cola’
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Justin Townes Earle
‘Ain’t Glad I’m Leavin’
[from the 2008 Bloodshot Records album The Good Life]
This is one of my favorites off of The Good Life. It may sound strange, but there’s something sweet and sort of naïve about a man telling a woman, “Good thing I annoy the shit out of you so you won’t be upset when I leave.”
FREE MP3: Justin Townes Earle, ‘Ain’t Glad I’m Leavin’
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Caitlin Rose
1 Comment so far
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wears the trousers magazine 
ha “menfolk”
Comment by CRo February 12, 2010 @ 7:49 pm