linda ray wrote: "Nobody's Dan Rather, here, and nobody's covering Congress." (i can't help but reply!) Close but no cigar -- I DO cover congress and I did give dan a copy of the HTC cd the other day and invited him to sit in with us and sing a coupla train songs any day (we both work for the same outfit) -- I haven't written any alt-country/country reviews yet, but I will. Because writing about alt-country/country is different than covering other genres. Right now it's a fairly underground scene -- Mike and I call the "scene" in DC underground because there aren't many venues for it here and there are no radio stations that play it (no americana stations around, either -- can you believe it?) BUT the audiences are growing - rapidly, because there is the PERCEPTION of a scene. And if there's a perceived scene, there is a scene. We had a terrible ice storm here in DC last Thursday, and - despite write-ups in the Washington Post and City Paper -- I really thought the only people who'd show up for the Greetings from the District of Country cd release party at Iota would be the players. I was happily wrong -- it was jam-packed. We are CREATING a scene here! But whatever you call it -- a scene-- a "movement" or whatever -- for the most part, the publicity isn't going to be done for us - we have to do some flag-waving ourselves. That's what the punkers and new wavers did back in the late 80s in dc- we rented storefronts and begged clubs to let us play on Mondays -- we plastered the town with flyers and started fanzines. Who else was going to write for the fanzines but the musicians? People read DCenes in the record stores, saw our flyers on lightposts around Dupont Circle and Georgetown, then started hearing our records on WGTB (bless you may you rest in peace) and on WHFS (which has now turned into a slop-90s haha "alternative"-those-kids-don't-know-the-meaning-of-alternative station) and it became a very very big scene. My little band Tru Fax & the Insaniacs sold out the cavernous (as in Luray Caverns it was so big) Wax Museum and 9:30 Club many times -- and so did our compatriots like the Slickee Boys and Insect Surfers and Tiny Desk Unit and Urban Verbs and many many bands. Oops, I'm getting loud. Anyway, the idea is to grow a "scene" the way we grew up those many years ago. And if i have to put on my own barn dances and publish my own little fanzine or ezine or whatever to help it grow, I'll do it. A slight aside: I think that fanzine and ezine writing is a lot different than writing for, say, The Washington Post. Eric Brace writes a "Circuits" column every week for the Post's Weekend Section. It's about the clubs and bands and shows in town. He's also in the very very good Last Train Home band, but he is not allowed to write about any shows or cds that band is involved in. I asked him to be on the Greetings cd, but he said that he couldn't, because he was going to write about the cd release party. He straddles a very wide road, but he does it very very well. But I wish he were on the cd and I wish he'd play my danged barn dance!
