Dusitn Durham and Safari Road- This "Two Lane" leads to one great country sound

If I had a dollar for every time I did something for no good reason, I would be a wealthy man. I walk around occasionally in a daze, wondering where the time slips off to. Mind you, it doesn't bother me too much since I seem to be taking care of business. But, I have come to a realization that not slowing down long enough to see what is going on around me is what really bugs me. A while back Melissa and I met a musician named Dustin Durham. He writes songs, and plays guitar for Safari Road.
Safari Road is a local band from Bosque County Texas that writes, and records, and performs pure Texas country from the heart, all over the state. For no good reason one day I was reading some e-mail correspondence between he and Melissa and ran across a couple of his songs, one of them being "Bosque Country Nights". It hit me that I had been in the little town he was singing about. It brought back memories of campfire picking and howling at the moon near Bosque Bottoms. So I decided to listen to the next tune called "Nightfall", and I hear more small-town Texas. I spend most of my time trudging around the DFW area, and I find it therapeutic to get back to the dirt roads, and small country towns of rural Texas. "FM 219" is a song everyone can identify with. Weather it’s where you live, where you want to live, or what you like to do it’s all in this song. "In My Own Time" personifies the Texas broken-hearted blues. It reminds me of Merle Haggard, or Waylon Jennings. The raw and soulful lap-steel guitar, and direct to the point lyrics make you feel the drama of the moment. "Sunshine" is an escape tune. It’s the 4-o-clock office daydream. The "Man it’s just too nice a day to be working!" feelings everyone knows. Kind of makes me want to play hooky from work and head to Galveston for the weekend. The remaining tunes "Change Your Mind", then "Superman", "Famous", and "Around" turned out to be great songs.
Before I knew it I had listened to the entire CD. Appropriately named "Two Lane", it’s available at all the usual online sites, or at any of their gigs. The CD boasts the phenomenal talents of Bob "Slim Bawb" Pearce who produced and sat in, along with Dusty. The album was released on www.radiofreetexas.org in early March of 2012, and already has five songs among the top in Texas music. The hit "FM 219 is currently at #6. The words and music of Safari Road is soothing and unrefined, clean-cut and well-played. The entire collection of songs is honest Texas country in purest form. It’s good for dancing, drinking, or just listening to when you are cooking out on the grill with your friends. So, if you’re out visiting your favorite Texas venue and Safari Road is playing, just throw a little sawdust on the floor and watch the magic happen. Remember while you are listening to "Two Lane" and Safari Road, it always helps to slow down and revel in the spontaneous moments of life. I promise you will be glad you did.

Dale Arnold
Co-owner, Co-Producer
Texas Red Productions
www.hwy82musicreview.com

The Washers - "Tired Eyes" - A little texas band with a lot of heart

The Washers

Growing up around South Texas I had the opportunity to get to know many classic country artists who passed through from Nashville. I got to see many greats such as Waylon Jennings, Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley, Marty Robbins, Hank Snow, and many more. I never knew there was an under-the-radar movement of great songwriters flowing just below this limelight. Although many years ago it seems, I will never forget how it felt the first time I heard a song by Doug Sahms, Ray Wylie Hubbard, or Townes Vanzant. Many times I exclaimed, “What great songs, how come I haven’t heard of these guys before now?” It was a rush of well-being. Just like finding a forgotten twenty dollar bill in the pocket of your jeans. It felt exhilarating, almost like finding buried treasure. It seemed to open a whole new chapter in my musical appreciation journal.

 A few weeks ago I was contacted to do a music review for a band of musicians from the Houston area I had never heard of calling themselves “The Washers”. I didn’t know what I was in for but I agreed to listen and find the time to write some words of encouragement. When I contacted Matt Kopycinski back asking him for a few of his favorites from their newly released CD entitled “Tired Eyes”, I literally had no idea what to expect. What I heard took me by surprise and back to those days in the late-seventies when I discovered Texas Americana and the likes. The immediate feelings of, “Why aren’t these guys touring all over the U.S. in a Prevost bus, packing every show to the front doors?” came back along with a flood of good memories. I started listening to each song, and making mental notes, trying to be professionally critical of the music. Pleasantly speaking, I found myself liking everything I heard, and having fun!

 The tempos in “Two Left Feet”, and “Like A Gypsy Should” immediately had my feet tapping, and my head nodding to the down-beat. The songs are polished, and recorded flawlessly, upbeat and totally dance-worthy. Even their mandatory “Texas song” “Here In Texas”,  was not the usual, overly self-absorbed, we-know-everyone-wants-to-be-a-Texan, trivial expression. It rings of missing loved ones waiting back in Texas, and how there is really no place like Texas. Harmonic vocal forms, and great lyrics permeate the bodacious ballads of “Park Light, Drive”, and “Regret”. These songs ring with sin, and the excitement of doing all the wrong things and making them feel so right.

By far my personal favorite has got to be “Ashes”. Not since The Mavericks went their separate ways have I heard such a blues-y, crying steel guitar, coupled with dynamite lead licks, and pinings of lost love, and jilted romance. A hauntingly good reverb sound and a little slide guitar tie it all together nicely. I listened to it several times over just to keep the feel of the moment.

The Washers are some of the best new Texas talent I have heard in a long time. It’s fresh, alive, and young country to the max. The musical styles of each of these multi talented musicians meld very well together. I’m what you might call a fan at first listen, and I’ll be catching up with these guys in person real soon. I got a huge hankering to take my "Two Left Feet" and spend the night making lots of four left turns with my sweetie.

 Hey! What do you know, I just found a twenty dollar bill in the back pocket of my old jeans. Must be my lucky day!

Dale Arnold

Co-Producer, Co-Owner

Texas Red Productions

Music Review

I am idealistic, hopeplessly optimistic, and been called naive by some I love, but......

(another sporadically deep process of thought on this dreary Winter day of January 2012)
to the artist who writes and sings...............


I absolutely love creative people. Music and art are funny things. We have art teachers and vocal coaches and those who are good and sometimes great at helping some "rise above the rest" to perform their art in a manner that a certain demographic of people will pay alot of money to see, support, and freely promote. What does it really mean? I see so much on so many different levels of a few people who THINK they have what it takes for YOU the musician to "make it big". Twist it, tighten it, color it up til it isn't what it was born to be so it looks and acts and breathes like something else they know that glitters. I am sorry that I would rather sit in the bus station in South Louisiana and listen to an old black man sing about his life travels rather than pay 25.00-200.00 to get in to an arena to see a fraction of what could be only to have that money used to kill and distort the musician and music that was gifted to that person in the first place. That is not to say that some do rise on what they are and see "fame" without distortion. It is not the norm from my observations.

I absolutely love wildflowers..some, who know me, would not be surprised in the least. I love wildflowers because their beauty is untamed and free. Music, when sang by those who feel it, live it, love it, cry with and for it, die in it, and share it are much like wildflowers. The "scene" that some want to cover and write about and be close to for personal gain, is not as interesting as the alternative. If you write, please write for those like myself who want to hear what you have to say.:) Sing it, whisper it, scream it, laugh it out loud, but don't give up no matter what.  I personally don't ever want to be stuck with the twisted and tainted-ly changed to fit an other's prideful interpretation of what you write. This does not include co writing by the way which I find more and more fascinating each time I am witness to it. We speak to one another on different occasions and have great conversations, but there is something about having a song written to and for you that is special. Beautiful. All those I call friends who understand this, thank you for giving to the rest of us a piece of yourself or your life.

Absolutely beautiful.

Does anyone observe what I see too?

Music is truly an undefinable art of soulful expression......some will get yours, others will not.

Today's philosophy?

Hallway Demons

As children, we endure most things that come our way. I see in my own children a resilience that I wish I could still tap in to from time to time. It is my experience after 43 years of life, that most people edure change, loss of a grandparent, the ridicule of a bully, the betrayal of a best friend, or the tragedy of the death of a family pet. Even more in the past 20 years, have deep issues with too much change or the loss of attachment to people due to divorce, marital affairs of their parents, or even death due to passionate anger. Not a single person still attached to the human race by DNA can get thru one or all of these curve balls on our own. Stories of that special friend, grandmother who would not give up, teacher who spent countless hours on a troubled kid, or a special friend who just held the hand of a tornado til the winds died down. Sometimes, in part or in full, a child slips through the hugs, hand holds, and comfort of another person that walks with those little feet through the fire seemingly alone. Those burn marks and scars stay on a person forever. I often have said, in testimony to others of where I have been, that in a mirror I see a burn victim. An intrigue and repulse at the same time fills my heart for who I was, where I have traveled from, and who I have become. When things or people happen to someone that early in life, good and bad, there is a place to go that feels better even for a short while. This introduces alcohol, drugs, addictions, the abuse of people (who have not their own faces) and violence.               Anger.                           I know there are those who do care, but some see these grown children and scoff at them with such harshness.That is not to say, there are only child-like qualities by any means! To remain childish in play and have an accepting heart to new is a much needed quality in most adults.  It pains my heart to no end when I hear or see the hidding of ones own skeletons only to crush another for theirs. We all walk, talk, make love, have friends, work, smile, cry and get angry,  Some walk dark hallways in a constant state of anxiety anticipating  the unexpected jolt of an ever present demon Others as part of solitary survival, choose to sit and have dinner with the enemy not knowing just how to get up from the table safely. Every failed attempt brings more failure to a life that is in need of hope and security. As created beings, holding the ability to share a smile, hold a hand, and let a hug linger, could we not all decide to sit down at the table and devise a plan to help those who can't stand, get up and walk slowly away from that horrid dinner? I can often be quoted in saying that "People are the best and worst thing on this crazy rotating rock" I chose to let someone help me walk a long while ago. I chose to gather strength from those God puts in my way long enough to get my attention even now. Without Light, there will always be a dark hallway. Without those who share that light and love, dinner alone will forever cripple great people! After all,  we are only grown up little feet.

When will this all be takin serious? When we no longer exist?

With this administration, I'm sure my profile will be flagged or something very unAmerican...but I just cannot let this one go.: ( If you hate politics on facebook even though it is a social platform for many, this is your cue to NOT READ.... go away and click the x at the top right hand corner of the screen. If you decide to read, it is not my fault that you did.

My kids came home yesterday talking about how gret it is to build a mosque in America and the peaceful beliefs of Islam. I have a major problem with this. I am a conservative, Christian, military-minded, mother of 12 (one who is presently a US Marine) who cannot understand how, in our own schools, we have to choke down what is really going on with our country. We were attacked by a religious sect of people with no reason to live but rather are rewarded to die and kill as many "infidels" as possible when they see no possible conversion to Islam. We, as an American culture, have rewritten some of history trying to hide the uglies of history, when all we need to do is tell the truth and learn from it. I do not HATE anyone. I do teach my children patience, grace, and loving others wherever they are in life or culture. I also believe in killing to protect the innocent or the endangered. I also believe in protecting the people of our country, foreign and domestic or in some cases fighting those who are the enemy of this country, foreign and domestic. I am going to spend the better part of my week teaching my elementary kids about not only 9-11, but about being an AMERICAN.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
For those of you who do not know what that is...it is the BEGINNING of a piece of very important paper that governs or should govern our country. Please educate yourself and your kids.
There is evil in the world.
There are enemies of governments, religions, and races.
We had better start understanding what a "Holy War" is about....we have had one declared on us by a whole group of people.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

hwy82musicreview.com

Today is a day of contemplation. What I would like to do and what I am allowed to do and what I can accomplish inspite of certain elements in life can all converge on one little spec in time. This is that moment for me, which I am sure will not be the last time I sit in the middle of it all wondering how to proceed.: )  To carry ideals is painful enough at times, but to leave integrity behind is far worse than I can carry. Me, well, I have no option to not carry ideals along with a whole lump of integrity or I cease to remain who I have become. There are those who proceed forward with neither and seem to get far more than those who cannot. I hold for the hope that when the race is ran, there will be a measurable difference that matters to the right onlookers. That is the answer for today.

yes.

Again. On another day. No matter what. with the same ideals. With the same measure of integrity.