Country Music in Brooklyn?

 A message from our founder

             New York City is about as un-country as you can get. Forget about any easy living or rocky tops or green, green grass of home. It just don’t get any bigger, louder, or more obnoxious than here, folks.

            Yet there’s a growing bunch of us, right here in the middle of the world’s largest city, who like nothing better than to pick up an old guitar (or a banjo, or a mandolin...) and bang out the sort of rugged, twangy music you’d expect to hear in some beery backroads honky-tonk fifty years ago. We come from all parts of the country--men and women, all ages and backgrounds, brought up on all styles of music. The one thing we all seem to share is a love of old-style country music at its rawest, wildest, and most sincere. That ain’t to say that we don’t love plenty of new acts, too, or that we cling too tightly to tradition. We just don’t have much use for big hair, overproduced sessions, or weak-kneed “crossover” sensations—in other words, we dislike most of the watered-down crap that passes for modern mainstream Nashville country. 

“That Ain’t Country!”

            Even in our tiny li’l scene, you see a lot of names thrown around: Alt-Country, Americana, Old-Time, Cowpunk, etc. etc.  They’ve all got their sound, and their look, and their special places they like to show up at. But if you ask me, this crowd ain’t big enough to be splitting hairs. I might use some of the more specific terms to give you a better idea of a band’s sound, but I’m not real interested in pigeonholing anybody. If you got a problem with that, this ain’t the place for you. (And please don’t waste my time e-mailing me about it.)

            Likewise, you’ll find that most of the reviews on this site are  pretty “uncritical.” I don’t feel a need to attack, out-obscure, or otherwise pretend I know more than everyone else. Lord knows, there’s enough of that crap in this city already. What I do want to do is provide accurate and (hopefully) entertaining descriptions of the people and places that are making a new kind of country music happen in this city.

            One final note: some of you in the other boroughs may take issue with the name “Brooklyn Country.” I chose it because, while there’s certainly plenty going on in Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx (Staten Island, you out there?), most of the performers I’ve met seem to come out of Brooklyn.

Oh, and “New York Country” was already taken.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading. We now return you to our regularly scheduled Home Page.

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