Hey settle down. Tonight it’s the complete Guy On A Buffalo saga from those scamps at The Possum Posse, featuring bears, bushwhackin, reprisal, orphans, straight-up cougar maulins, wolves,  creepin coyotes, raccoon dumplings and revenge. You’re welcome.

Guy On A Buffalo

Episode 1 (Bears, Indians and Such)

Episode 2 (Orphans, Cougars & What Not)

Episode 3: Finale Part 1 (Origins, Villains & The Like)

Episode 4: Finale Part 2 (Rehab, Vengeance & What Have You)

Break yo gun onna STUMP!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled knees-bent running-about chasing fish and not blogging antics for this word from Haber Dasher’s Sleeve Garters & Pomade.

I’m late to the party on this one, but maybe you are too. Heads up. Been wearing out The Holy Coming of the Storm by Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. It’s been getting heavy, heavy rotation all winter long down here in East L.A. To the NW folks: these are your neighbors (Seattle is where they reside), so go see ‘em. Sounds like they were born in a gotdam holler in West Virginny. Shit fire! They are good.

New for sale at Buster’s Swagge Shoppe, it’s Ike! On a shirt! If it looks sketchy and amateurish, well spotted! Nothing gets by you!

Thee’s Picks
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists — Brutalist Bricks
Seems like every other Ted Leo record is a flat out classic. This is that record. Straight ahead, literate, spikey punk n’ pop with lotsa charm.

Pantha Du Prince –  Black Noise
Super chilled, blissed out kinda barely there electro squibs n’ blips. It’s hard to find an electronic record that won’t bug the shit out of you after two listens. Black Noise has never bugged me. Not even once.

Scout Niblett — The  Calcination of Scout Niblett
Scout Niblett kicks so much ass it’s not even funny.

Alasdair Roberts and Friends — Too Long In This Condition
Another trip the middle ages where plauge abounds, there’s nothing to eat and the king wants to put your head on a pike. Good times.

Grinderman — II
Makes me yearn for the Birthday Party, but I’ll take a spasmodic Warren Ellis and a yowling Nick Cave over Arcade Fire any goddam day.

Otis Gibbs — Joe Hill’s Ashes
Good pissed off political folk punk. Imagine if Billy Bragg was born a shit-kickin’ good old boy.

Will Oldham and the Cairo Gang–I don’t care what anyone says,Will Oldham is not turning into the Eagles.

Bacon’s apparently still stuck in 2009 Picks

Pelican — What We All Come to Need
Chill metal and no lyrics. Badass for solo fly swinging sessions on the iPod and way better than listening to jetboats ferry Dudes around all day.

Bill Callahan — Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle
Skeena 2010 soundtrack, powerdrive north to see some old friends, eighteen cups of Tim Horton’s rotgut coffee eating holes in my ulcer and no-hands pissing in a Houston park and ride’s gravel. Sun was rising over the Bulkely Valley and I was feeling the only kinda religion that matters. The tune ‘Faith/Void’ kills it: ‘It’s time/to put God away.’

Atmosphere — Blood Makes the Blade Holy
Sluggo proves he can still rock the wordwork and bring it back to the Lucy Ford days.

The Moth Podcasts Dunno if this qualifies as a record, but the stories are hilarious, often tough or uncomfortable and real. I do a lot of driving to rivers. I can’t stand pundit radio, right or left. And if I gotta hear NPR’s Click and Clack EVER again…NOTE: Sadly, The Drive-By Truckers’ The Big To-Do didn’t make this and a podcast did. A fucking podcast. Pretty much because The Big To-Do was weak-ass and proved Patterson Hood’s ego never shoulda fired Jason Isbell. We suffered through Brighter Than Creation’s Dark in the hopes TBTD would show promise, but well, I’m calling it: R.I.P DBT.

Creek’s Softer Side of 2010 Pick

Cotton Jones
Tall Hours in the Glowstream has been getting all kinds of attention from me the last few months and is clearly my pick of 2010. Call it Cosmic Country. Call it indie folk. I just call it good. The album is based on the river that flows through the band’s hometown. River music, indeed.

Wook’s Picks

The New Mastersounds – Ten Years On
More badass Brit funk and soul. Reworked Grace Potter’s already great “Nothing But the Water,” got Grace to sing it, and made it even better. Catch them if you can, but wear your greezy pants.

OK Go – Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
Geek pop was never so much fun. Well, since TMBG. Whatever. Highlight: “WTF?”

John Butler Trio – April Uprising
Pissed off legions of neo-hippie fans by producing 15 tightly-written songs, mostly under 5 minutes long, while still showcasing some tasty guitar stuffis. “One Way Road” is one damn well-crafted tune.

Jimi Hendrix – Valleys of Neptune
I hesitated, having been repeatedly bummed by the flood of Weekend At Jimi’s-style posthumous releases, but this ain’t them. This includes the final throes of the Experience, following Electric Ladyland. It’s nothing shiny and new, but it’s got the voodoo stank, and I don’t imagine there’s much of that left lying around.

Cee Lo Green – The Lady Killer
Gnarls Barkling Cee Lo gets a nod just for “Fuck You,” which rightly got a lot of attention. Way beyond a novelty song, it’s HQ Motown with about the best hook ever, and good luck getting it out of your head. Huge props for the video production too. I need me some backup singers.

Now aint that some shit?

Salty’s Picks

I’m feeling pretty pedestrian after reading the above picks. I’ll easily  second Wook’s OK Go and Cee Lo selections. Other stand outs for me this year were Vampire Weekend’s Contra (best tracks IMHO are Giving Up the Gun, Diplomat’s Son and Giant).

California, or at least a certain idealization of California,  seems to loom large in my picks this year. Neo-surf rock from Wavves went into heavy rotation and Best Coast sounds a bit like Neko Case moved to Hermosa Beach and got a tan.

Albums not released in 2010 but that I discovered this year include Richard Hawley’s Lady’s Bridge, found via the trailer for Exit Through the Gift Shop, and Canadian roots music from Stan Rogers and The Beaton Family of Mabou.

Speaking of retro soul, hard to miss JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound’s cover of Wilco’s “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”

Then again, I’m probably just losing my edge.

Dean Ween on fishing and why making albums is a drag these days.

Money quote:

“The guys that work on these partyboats, they’re out working one trip in the afternoon, and then they’re a commercial scallop fisherman at night. They know everything. They know the tuna grounds, they know how to bottom-fish, they know how to drag for scallops. It’s intense. And it is a generational thing. Some salty ass guys. (laughs) Those are the people you want to listen to.”

This one’s fer Windknot:

thee mighty SUNN O))))  are currently on tour. bring earplugs, holmes.

Pile on! No twisting yr cleats, we’re all fiends here.

I guess I’m going to get all fancy and call this a continuing series. This will make installment number two of badass albums that got overlooked back in the day. D. Braxton Harris kicked things off with the laser, Deep Dark Black. Up next is the Hilltop’s Big Black River. It’s a primer, if you will, for the Blue Mountain catalog. The Hilltops were composed of Cary Hudson, Laurie Stiratt, John Stiratt, and Hank Sossaman. Cary and Laurie went on to form one of my all-time favorite bands, Blue Mountain. Laurie’s brother, John, went on to join Jeff Tweedy on the final Uncle Tupelo lineup and then Wilco. No idea on Hank.

Big Black River has a roughness to it that I crave. Especially these days where everything seems so polished, marketed, and calculated. The album’s sound is one of it’s treasures. The same reason I dig Lucero’s Attic Tapes. It’s as far removed from pop princesses, Toby Keiths, and American Idols as it can get. I frequently listen to this one on a lazy Sunday afternoon on the way home from my favorite little flow. Standout tracks for me are “Broke Down and Busted”, “Big Black River”, and “Dead End Street”. Big Black River was released on Fishtone Records, 1991, and then re-released on Black Dog records years later. Might be hard to find or out of print…..A definite git.

Reminder: NOLA still needs a lot of work.

Link to Musician’s Village.

Neko Case has a new album coming out and well, we’re looking forward to it. It’s been a while since Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Sample a free track and enjoy this slightly NSFW but tasteful link. A cheap grab for page hits? Probably, but don’t say we never did anything for you.

Ron Ashton, guitarist for the Stooges, has died in his Ann Arbor apartment. He was 60.

Yeah, the Sex Pistols invented punk rock…. sure they did.

the 169% laser awesomnality that is holly golightly and thee brokeoffs with a lil’ number they call “gettin’ high for jesus”

Hackensaw Boys – Gospel Plow

For our homies still left in Michigan…

Farandole. Because it’s the season whether you like it or not, so you might as well hear some good music.

I discovered Deep Dark Black many, many moons ago. I was living in the Ham (Birmingham, AL) at the time and a local boy, D. Braxton Harris, released this little album of gold. It’s the kind of album that grabs you by the short and curlies and doesn’t let go. Just imagine if Hank Williams went Emo, sort of. Well, a few years go by and some rat bastard steals it from me. Or I lost it. I was heartbroken. Turns out D. Braxton Harris left his Birmingham home for Austin shortly after Deep Dark Black’s release, changed his name to DB Harris, and went Rockabilly on us. I looked and looked for a copy around town and nada.

Two weeks ago I stumbled upon it on itunes. Steve Jobs, beers on me pal. Give it a listen. It’s definitely worth gittin’.

Here’s some reviews from 1999:

Southern Gothic Narcotic Country. “music that’s so beautiful, it doesn’t matter who or what the reference points are. Spare, intimate, and invariably winsome, Deep Dark Black makes for perfect late-night-driving music” – The Onion

“Deep Dark Black envelops the listener like a warm bed on a dreary Sunday morning, inviting him to remain still, even in the specter of responsibilities awaiting ahead.” – No Depression

“Here I sit obsessively hitting the repeat button as I marvel at the thing that is Deep Dark Black…This is simply one of the most beautiful, stirring, disturbing, almost unbearably sad albums I have ever heard – all the things I could hope for and more…It has been a while since I fell so deeply and hopelessly in love with a CD.” – Sophie Best, PBS-FM 107.6, Melbourne, Australia

List of fly fishing blogs with their own theme song:

1. Buster Wants to Fish

List of fly fishing blogs without their own theme song:

Everybody Else. (Ha! owned!)

Here’s the song, written by BWTF regular, ace angler and pretty reet drummer, Snap as performed by his rock outfit, ’63 Burnout.

Music is a big deal to the Buster gang, and here’s a new release that has tickled my fancy as of late. And who doesn’t like their fancy tickled from time to time? 

Ben Nichols, lead man of Lucero, is up to some more badassry. He’s going solo this time with the EP, The Last Pale Light in the West. This is the O-fficial companion piece to the theatrical release of Cormac’s Blood Meridian. I have given it a few spins and I am loving it. Like 169% loving it. The Last Pale Light in the West doesn’t officially release till October 10th, but they’ll give you a digital copy till you can get your hands on the candy. And Salty….breathe in, breathe out.

Track listing:

1. The Last Pale Light in the West
2. The Kid
3. Davy Brown
4. Chambers
5. Tobin
6. Toadvine
7. The Judge

Ben Nichols -vocals, acoustic guitar/Rick Steff - accordion/Todd Beane - pedal steel

There’s been plenty of awesome released over the last few weeks…Old Crow’s Tennessee Pusher and Calexico’s Carried to Dust being two prime examples. Git those two while I’m at it.

Rest in peace, you Hot Buttered Soul Cat.