Part of Apr 2012 by

The Revival Tour

That’s it.  I have had it.  Either my geriatric alarm clock has finally gone-off or the elasticity of my auditory brain cells have worn-out and fallen down to my knees while standing in line at Walmart.  Sure, I have always pretended to get your progressive and experimental  craziness.  Zappa, yeah I was a tall toddler but okay.  Mr. Bungle bring it Bunglers.  I even pretend to “get” Iwrestledabearonce but that’s mainly because they are hilarious and very good people.  And this current and seemingly endless wave of progressive extreme metal we are awash in: yes, I get the technicality, musicality and the calitycality of it all; it’s rad and impressive. But this new silliness of random-anything music is just Top 40 for clown car stereos.  I have envisioned this band meeting, “Okay so we come out of the thrash metal part, then directly into the techno version of “Roll Out the Barrel” with Lady Gaga dubbed-in as Polka Master, then we immediately start spanking 6 pound hams in a syncopated manner, and then we poke badgers with sticks.” “Why badgers?” “Do not question my creativity!!”  For example: If you make it through all four minutes and seventeen seconds of THIS MUSIC VIDEO WITH 1.1 MILLION PLAYS FROM A BAND THAT IS SIGNED  (it’s the Twilight sparkles and Botox hair that ruins it for me), I will personally bake you your favorite cookie and deliver said cookie to your front door.

You’re back?  Don’t lie.  You made it 45 seconds into that video and cast that dream cookie into the abyss.  No cookie for you!  So what the hell does this have to do with Chuck Ragan’s Revival Tour?  I was simply trying to smash your head into my cyclical yearly level of jadedness, which occurs surprisingly right before this annual tour begins.  The Revival Tour is a road bound jam session with a bunch of close friends who are all punk/rock/americana superstars.  It’s one big helping of fresh musical air.  These guys go out every night on the tour acoustically playing their tunes, taking musical risks, and ultimately creating something great and unique that is important just on its own.  Sounds like some hefty hyperbole but I gots the goods to back it up.  Watchie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEukzhEqYwk

The 2012 Revival Tour, which is the fifth annual, features founder and organizer Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music, Dan Andriano from Alkaline Trio, singer/song writer Cory Branan, Tommy Gabel of Against Me!, amazing folk story teller/ song writer Nathaniel Rateliff who are all accompanied by Jon Gaunt on the fiddle and Joe Ginsberg of Single File and Baywood fame on the upright bass sporting an epic stashe that just wouldn’t fly with the Single File fans I’m sure.

Now most tours say there will be some sort of special guests at some point on the journey and there usually are, but with the Revival Tour it’s every single night.  And it’s not just “Hey…here’s Elmer of Elmer’s Cookies our great sponsor for the evening.”  No the special guest are all very accomplished musicians and most of them are card carrying members of the fame club.  A good formula for who the special guest will be in your town is “What cool punk/rock peeps with fame-age live in my town and aren’t on tour?” It’s a good bet they will be on stage with Chuck n’ friends.

If you click over to the Revival Tour Facebook page you can get a free 5 song download from this year’s participants and feel your faith in music revived.  Which is what this revival stuff is all about.  If you have the chance to catch at least one of the dates of the tour it will be very worth your time and if you can catch more than one do so because every night is a completely different and unique event.  Now where’s that demo CD I was sent of the band that dress as Orcs and sing in pig squeals…aaahh here it is!

http://www.therevivaltour.com