It’s Nashville Day in Austin

With all due respect to Austin, we don’t really cover SXSW like errbody else. That’s mostly because navigating it without being on the ground is like hunting with Ray Charles (but also because it’s more about industry than fans).

However, we did want to give a shout out to the splendid lineup at The Nashville Day Party, which kicks off  at Noon at the Austin Ale House. This event and the Paste/Newport Folk Fest showcase earlier this week are probably the most grass clippings-esque gigs of the festival. Of note is Nashville’s modern Patsy Cline, Caitlin Rose. Rose last week released her new album, The Stand In (Amazon MP3 & Spotify), which is one of my favorites of the year so far. The album’s twang-meets-pop feel represents the new Nashville sound (lots of pedal steel) that fits in nicely with the others on the bill that we love, like Andrew Combs and Rayland Baxter.

Escondido also caught my ear with its indie-Calexico-like sound. The duo released The Ghost of Escondido (Amazon MP3 & Spotify) just last month and I’m still getting to know it, but love it…and shocked that I haven’t heard about it until now. And then there’s singer-songwriter Odessa Rose (Hello!). Her new video for “My Match” is pretty stunning.

Here’s a few vids to check out to preview the day.