I know what you’re thinking, but, no, I’m not writing about porn. Instead I’m writing about a group of people who have been marginalized by the music industry for the past 25 years or so. You know the type. The guys who won’t listen to their local rock station because it plays manufactured bullshit, so instead reluctantly listen to the country station while complaining that things just haven’t been the same since Keith Whitley died. I’ve just described millions of music fans, yet most of the regular readers here will write them off as being too lazy to seek out better music. That’s not the case. The case is that they’re probably working 40 hours a week in a town where Wal-Mart is the only music store and mainstream rock and country are the only options.
It used to be these types of folks who the industry catered to. You used to be able to turn on the local country station and hear Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Johnny Paycheck, Kris Kristofferson, Bobby Bare, Tom T. Hall, David Allan Coe, Loretta Lynn, and dozens of others singing songs to you and about you. They were the definition of troubadours, they were the chroniclers of the common people and you knew that they had lived your life and walked in your shoes long before they ever had a hit record. Above all else, they were real.
But what were you to do if an Olivia Newton-John song came on the air? Then you were screwed, right? Wrong. You simply turned it over to the rock station and listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, Neil Young, Elvin Bishop, Leon Russell, the Allman Brothers, CCR, Bob Seger, Black Oak Arkansas and others who were also standing up for the average everyday American and telling tales of their life to the masses.
Back then there were mainstream artists who were more than manufactured pop whores like Katy Perry, tweenyboppers like Justin Bieber, and pretty boy psuedo-country like Rascal Flatts. These were artists you respected because you knew that they weren’t molded into a star by some record company. You knew that they worked their way up by playing in small town bars and roadhouses, just singing their songs to anybody who would listen. Elvis Presley may have died the King of Rock ‘n Roll, but he was born as poor white trash in a rundown shack. Of course, there were underground acts back then too, but there was also a plethora of good music in the mainstream.
MTV killed it. It became all about image and teenage girls just weren’t attracted to long-haired outlaws. Sure, there were the “hair metal” bands, but that was the work of million-dollar stylists. The last stand of the outlaws in the mainstream may have been the grunge movement along with bands like Guns n’ Roses and Pantera. Willie and Waylon signed with indie labels, Leon Russell fell off the radar, and the general public eventually grew immune to bullshit. Even hip-hop, once the domain of genuine badasses like Public Enemy, N.W.A., and 2Pac, has become a tool of the corporate pop puppet masters. Meanwhile, the kids who listen to the classic rock station because they realized their generation’s taste in music sucks are waiting for something good to come along.
Which brings me to the point. The other day Shooter Jennings got in touch with me because he had decided the hard-working people of America deserve better than Taylor Swift during their morning commute. He asked me to give him the names of some artists to add to a list he was making for a new proposed radio format called XXX. To quote the mission statement:
“It is a true shame that there are such rigid GENRE definitions in popular music today! You’ve got POP, ROCK, COUNTRY, R&B, AAA and HIP HOP. This may be fine for most musicians, but there is a very unfair gap in music the way it is. ROCK music is split into two formats MODERN ROCK and ACTIVE ROCK, both of which do not accept SOUTHERN or COUNTRY-LEANING music at all. Then there’s COUNTRY. COUNTRY is a market controlled by NASHVILLE’S inner-workings. Video outlets such as CMT and GAC have created ‘back of the bus’ programming like “Wide Open Country” and “Edge of Country” to relieve the pressure created by the growing movement of outsiders in the field, but it’s not a fair representation of the broad scope of these underdogs. Radio stations have created late-night and weekend specialty programming to play these artists as well, but again, this is just placating these tremendous artists. These artists are multiplying in number year by year and this brings us to our cause: WE WANT OUR OWN GENRE! WE WANT OUR XXX!”
The artist list ended up being a varied lot of mostly Southern artists who have been pushed to the wayside by the corporate music machine. It is not Americana or alt. country. Although there is some overlap, Americana is mostly XXX’s NPR-friendly cousin. These are bands that are too country (or should I say redneck?) for Americana, bands that are too heavy for alt. country, bands that are too outlaw to fit into any genre classification. Rockabilly, psychobilly, and hillbilly are all included and there are even a few great Southern rappers who could never fit into the mainstream Atlanta establishment. In short, this is everything radio used to be, but it isn’t your daddy’s FM station by any means. No, like all great art forms, outlaw country and Southern rock have evolved over the years, while always staying true and being respectful to tradition. We think that putting these genres back on the air with the great new artists being played alongside an occasional dose of their musical forefathers will create a revolution that can and will dismantle the establishment and expose a demographic has been abused over the years, but is still ready for some great music. Remember the song “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down”? Well, we’re about to make it happen.
Of course, there will always be a market for crap. Even in the era I discussed previously, The Partridge Family and Leif Garrett sold millions of records. But we also believe there is still a solid market for great music and that these artists deserve a fair chance.
We know that the list is incomplete and you’re welcome to tell me who else belongs on it. I’ll make sure it gets back to Shooter, because he wants to hear them and, more importantly, he wants to hear them on the radio. In fact, he told me that starting this week he is devoting his show on Sirius Radio’s Outlaw Country station entirely to the XXX format. There was even talk about possibly putting together a XXX Festival.
Visit http://givememyxxx.com/ to read more about XXX and sign the petition.
Artists who have officially endorsed the XXX concept:
Dash Rip Rock
Jason Isbell
Jerry Castle
Jocephus & the George Jonestown Massacre
Johanna Divine
John Carter Cash
Kevin Sekhani
Lukas Nelson
North Mississippi Allstars
Rhett Miller
Riki Rachtman (former host of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball)
Scott H. Biram
Shooter Jennings
Tommy Townsend
Whitey Morgan and the 78’s
Young Struggle
