After a long week and a half, we here at Couch by Couchwest wanted to take a minute to thank all of you who really made CXCW a success. Without your videos, your views, and your ongoing commentary on Twitter and Facebook, we’d just be a few folks with a website. This is your festival, not ours, and we hope you had a great time.
We especially want to thank all the musicians that took the time to record videos, cram into strange places, bum cameras from friends – all in the name of CXCW. We’ve watched every single video that was submitted and were fortunate to have to so many great bands willing to give us some of their talent.
Now we ask one more thing of you. If you liked what you heard during the past week, please go buy an album or a shirt or check out a band the next time they’re in your town. Even something as little as “liking” them on Facebook can help them with booking shows. After getting to hear 264 (we think) bands for free, it’s the least we all can do!
When I was born my momma didnt want me, my daddy was gone, and I was bounced around from foster home to foster home. With that being the case, I learned to fend for myself, both at home and on the streets. I wouldn’t say, even with all the bouncing around, I had a terrible childhood, but it was filled with half-promises and lots of heartbreak. When I was 10, I saw my first person stabbed. It was in the back of the school I was attending, and that forever changed me. I was still innocent, merely 10 years old. I, still don’t know what happened that day, or what would drive someone to commit such an act on another human being, but it changed me.I saw the ambulance come, take the young man away, but I was left with questions as I just alluded to. My eyes, these innocent eyes, saw evil in the world for the first time. I saw the ambulance come, take the young man away, and a stain on the playground. I still visit that very playground, from time to time, to this day, and that stain is still there. The stain that took my innocence away.
During one particular stint with a family that shall remain nameless, they were always playing music. Whether it be Stevie Wonder, The Doobie Brothers, The Eagles, The Clash, Springsteen and even Barry Manilow, music was always flowing throughout the house. I’ll be honest, they were assholes, but they jumpstarted my love affair with music. So, I guess, I have them to thank for that. I wont mention the shitty hamburgerhelper that was served every damn night, and the smoke that was constantly being blown in my face. They changed my life, for better or worse.
Years passed, I grew to a man, but during that time it was always about “the music.” It was always a magical escape from everything that I have gone through, the heartbreak, the lies, the broken promises, the “I love you’s” that didnt mean shit, everything. Oddly enough, I have not turned into a bitter older guy. Yes, I am not 27 any more, but does that really matter? I think not!
With all that said, here are my two picks, the Baron Childs picks, as my favorite to come out of 2012′s Couch by Couchwest “festival.”
Timothy Showalter is Strand of Oaks and he chose to cover Jason Molina’s “Long Desert Train.” A song that is as painful as the title suggests. The song always said to me “hey, this shit any going anywhere, and no matter what you do to try to stop it, you’re gonna fail.” Have you ever driven through a desert? It’s never-ending nothingness, and Showalter nails that feeling perfectly.
Now, my second pick may come as a bit of surprise, but it’s Chase 56′s “Mary Jane.” Sure, the quality is kinda shitty, but isn’t life most of the time? I kid, I kid, sort of. Like I said the quality is iffy, but the vocals and instrumentation are strong, and I have been a big fan of this song since I first heard their record “Altoona Rising” a year or so back. Plus, their on a damn dock! I wanna be on a damn dock! Jealous.
After watching over 250 videos in less than a week it’s hard to narrow it down to just a few to favorites. I’m sure if I wasn’t in the middle of posting awards I could post something intelligent and well thought out but sorry, folks, that ain’t gonna happen. CXCW offices at its chaotic norm! Here’s a few highlights of the week for me.
Seriously though, we love that y’all are willing to send us videos and put up with our nonsense and typos and lack of organization. We love doing this and hope every year will be bigger and better. See you in 2013!
The staff couldn’t come to a consensus on, well, anything, but especially on best solo artist or best group video or pretty much anything involving music. We fought about it for a good five hours, and finally decided that every staff member should pick his/her own favorites. Here are some of mine.
When the video for Chase 56′s version of “Friends in Bottles” by The Takers came into the CXCW offices, I literally watched it 15 times before we posted it. First of all, it’s a great, great song. And the band gives a powerful performance. I thought I would miss the pedal steel from the original version, but the guitars and Chris Stalcup’s strong vocals make up for it. I actually think I like this version better than the original.
How do I pick a favorite solo act? There were so many good ones. Matthew Ryan recorded his on an iPhone and killed it (his songs, not the phone)! While Hezekiah Jones had a bit more video production, but still played a a beautiful piece of music. James Scott Bullard is new to me, and played a powerful song. Tyler Stenson with his slightly goofy but heartfelt parody, and Jonny Corndawg, was, well Jonny Corndawg. Kent Goolsby sounds like a singer wise beyond his years. I can listen to Ray Wylie Hubbard and Kasey Anderson all day. There were a bunch of singer/songwriters from Houston, and my favorite out of that group was Lucas Martin. How can you not love Shonna Tucker and Jimbo Mathus? Tim Showalter/Stand of Oaks was incredible covering Jason Molina.
I think my overall solo favorite (and this is subject to change to any of the above) is by Jeff Zentner and his “gothic” country song Serpent King. I love dark folk music, and Zentner really captures a dark, evil feel in telling a story about the narrator’s daughter getting bit by an evil snake. So good.
You know we had to end this thing somehow and it was impossible to give all of our favorite performances awards. After what seemed like days of arguing in the CXCW offices we came to a solution. Each of the CXCW staff members would have one post, ONE POST, to talk about the performances we each thought deserved recognition.
Now, there were 275 videos posted total during the fest and in that 275 there was a whole lot of awesome. I have decided to talk about some of the ones you might have missed. I mean of course you folks all saw the Ray Wylie Hubbard, the Will Kimbrough, the Jimbo Mathus, the Mic Harrison, the Shonna Tucker, the Gretchen Peters (if you haven’t seen those, please go watch them now). Those were all amazing performances and we are grateful for those artists’ agreeing to play. This helps bring in traffic so that other, less established bands may get some exposure as well (this is pretty much our business model folks). So let me just take a brief minute to thank all the artists who performed for our crazy little festival, every one of you. Without the great performances that were sent to us we would be just another website posting the same old youtube links. It’s thanks to you, the performers willing to take a chance, that this festival was a success.
So without further ado, here are some of my picks from the CXCW festival
Favorite Overall Perfomance: Chase 56 – Mary Jane
This one has everything I look for in a great CXCW video. Great song, well shot, interesting location, fairly unknown band, giant dog, Macguyver’d drums, beer, just a great damn performance.
Favorite Overall Song: Tom Savage Trio – Train Keeps A Rollin’
If you can watch that without bobbing your head and singing “Train Keeps A Rollin’, Train Keeps A Rollin’” you deserve some kind of an award. Actually you deserve some kind of ear test or possible mental evaluation.
and finally I don’t think the awards could have picked a better performance to end with. If you haven’t watched Gretchen Peters – Hello Cruel World, plese watch it now, and thanks again to all who paid attention and all who sent us performances. Thank you truely
The winner of our people’s choice award (the video with the most clicks logged on the big blue button) won by a landslide. Not only did she sing one of the saddest songs submitted, she did a great job of promoting herself. Congratulations Josie Little, People’s Choice of 2012!
We are proud to present the inaugural George Jones Award for Excellence to Mr. Shooter Jennings. He tried his damnedest but he just couldn’t make it happen. Now some of you out there may be asking yourself, what does this award mean and where is the Shooter Jennings performance? You should ask yourself that again.
One of our favorite parts of CXCW is chatting with everyone on twitter. We’re thrilled to have a lot of buddies back from last year and to have the opportunity to get a bunch of new folks. Our number one new twitter friend is @tincanman2010, who’s not only entertaining, but already writing reviews of CXCW bands before we even post the awards!
This award goes out to all our CXCWers from San Luis Obispo. We think that includes Cody St James, The Dead Volts, Ghosts of Guadalupe, Dickie Cross, American Dirt. Y’all seem awesome and your town seems weird (we looked it up – drive-thrus are illegal and you get fined $700 for parties!?), but we want to hang! Call us!
Honorable Mentions: Two Mule Blues – let’s blow shit up together Imperial Rooster – how can you not want to party with someone named Nat King Kong? @popa2unes – has the best stash in the tri-state area
Last year at this time there was this terrible pop song stuck in everyone’s heads, so we challenged our readers to cover it. @WellVersedMom, a resident of Austin and mother of two teenaged daughters, made a killer parody video that made everyone cry with laughter. Pork butt, pork butt.
With no terrible pop song torturing us this spring (no more than the usual anyway), we didn’t bother asking for a cover. But somehow Tyler Stenson read our subconscious about needing a late 1960s James Taylor song parodied for CXCW – pretty much exactly the opposite of what @WellVersedMom did last year. And he nailed it! A funny, beautifully shot video, by a great singer, who embodied the CXCW ethos of really wanting to go to Austin, not being able to make it. I’m going to stop writing now because this is sounding like a Pitchfork review. Good job Tyler!
After a long week and a half, we here at Couch by Couchwest wanted to take a minute to thank all of you who really made CXCW a success. Without your videos, your views, and your ongoing commentary on Twitter and Facebook, we’d just be a few folks with a website. This is your festival, not ours, and we hope you had a great time.
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