Once upon a time, I lived for music. I was addicted to the radio, everything sounded good. I couldn’t get enough, I wanted to know more. THOSE DAYS ARE BACK!

It’s like someone’s been hiding this modern country from me. Or maybe I couldn’t get past the image. The right wing influences. The phony cowboy look. But these songs… They’re closer to seventies rock than anything I’ve heard since. And that’s just fine in my book.

And being a newbie, I’m sans attitude. I don’t know you’re supposed to hate this one, or this one’s a prick, or someone else does it better. It’s just about what SOUNDS GOOD TO ME!

Still, I know classics. And the following tracks are not classics. But country radio is FULL of stuff like this. Completely SERVICEABLE!

You never have to push the button listening to country radio, not the satellite stations I listen to. Every one of those songs sounds good.

These are some of those that SOUND good, but even I know are workmanlike, made by journeymen. Check ’em out.

But don’t e-mail me and tell me I’m an idiot. For liking this shit. For not being sophisticated enough. YOU’RE RIGHT!

But that makes me just like everybody else, i.e. the audience. They don’t depend on music to pay their bills. Rather, it’s the grease that gets them through. They don’t want tuneouts, no jarring sounds, they want companionship. They want heroes. Who are really no different from them.

"Guitar Slinger"
Crossin Dixon

This is Molly Hatchet. Lynyrd Skynyrd without the original members, but with BETTER MATERIAL!

Not everybody can be the Allman Brothers, not everybody can be original. But is there room for JOURNEYMEN?

We baby boomers, our sound is dead and buried. Except on arena stages. The mainstream media is reviewing records we have no intention of ever checking out. Why should we? There’s an endless parade, if anything good is ever released, someone, a buddy, WILL TELL US! Believe me, we’re looking. Just not for what they’re selling us.

Yet somehow, this lame calculated country track is closer to what we want to hear than ANYTHING the hipsters tell us we should be paying attention to.

It starts off like a walk. Like someone who listened to every record ever cut in Muscle Shoals would lay down. And then the Eagles harmonies! Then, is the lead singer almost…RAPPING?

And the road lyrics. It’s a modern country "It’s A Long Way To The Top". And these guys DO rock and roll!

I’ve got Southern Comfort runnin’ through my veins
My mama was the wind and my daddy was a train
I’m the second comin’ of the midnight rider
I’m a modern day old folk singer
Son of a gun and guitar slinger

How do you like that, references to Janis Joplin, the Allmans’ legendary hit and Bon Jovi’s classic all in ONE CHORUS! Talk about CALCULATED, talk about CHEAP SHOTS!

But it sounds SO damn good!

The lyrics are about finding their own sound, pounding it out on the pavement for ten years. You can sit there in your designer duds and pooh-pooh them or you can jump into the pit and ENJOY IT!

Catch the track on MySpace: Crossin Dixon

Or watch the live video on the band’s homepage: Crossin Dixon

Yup, this music can be played LIVE!

"Last Train Running"
Whiskey Falls

If you want the harder-edged stuff, like Crossin Dixon, you’ve got to listen to Sirius’ "Outlaw Country", channel 63. But I heard this on XM’s Highway 16. I was sitting at the kitchen table, reading "iWoz" (Steve Wozniak is the nerd of ALL TIME!) and listening to my XM boom box, and none of those songs sounded bad, but certain songs just JUMPED OUT OF THE RADIO! This is one of them.

I wrote down the titles. I just fired up my P2P program and had a downloading session.

Cross a Linda Ronstadt track, you know, one of those country-influenced numbers, with the Eagles (who, of course, started out as Linda’s backup band) and Poco and leave out ALMOST all the meaning and you’ve got "Last Train Running". Imagine "Seven Bridges Road" with a religious slant. Actually, don’t. Just listen to this, don’t contemplate the lyrics, you might have to turn it off.

But sometime this summer, when you’re on the deck, and the sun is setting, fire this up and you’ll feel GOOD!

Whiskey Falls Myspace

"Isn’t She"
Carolina Rain

I kept debating whether to write this title down. It was borderline… But then the song broke down, and I picked up my pen…

She left him, she moved to California. Isn’t that what you do, when you want to START OVER?

Yup, she’s selling margaritas in a tiki bar on the beach. And you know she’s not in her twenties, but her thirties. Men need a linear progression, they need to set the world on fire. Women? If it’s not working, they just try something new. They’re not afraid to begin again. And they’re not afraid to do something to generate cash to pay the bills while they’re figuring it out.

The dame is much more appealing than the dude. She’s moved on, she’s giving it a good shot. He’s crying in his beer. You know guys, they just watch sports, they don’t get down to it. But if you get them late at night, when they can no longer prop up the defense, they sound like the guy in this song. He can’t get her out of his HEAD!

"Free And Easy (Down The Road I Go)"
Dierks Bentley

This is the last of the XM’ers. This is mediocre until you hit the CHORUS! Which is a keeper. Hell, isn’t that what endeared us to all those British Invasion tracks?

But even better is the pickin’ that comes AFTER the chorus.

Dierks Bentley Myspace

"Pickin’ Wildflowers"
Keith Anderson

You’ve got to read the review of the album, "Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll", on allmusic.com. They think this guy is the most sold out, endorsement-laden, calculating prick of ALL TIME!

Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll – allmusic

Only one problem, ever since they redesigned allmusic, it runs so fucking SLOW that no one can even USE the site, so pasty white boys get no purchase on the American public.

This ain’t really a keeper, but the reference to Tom Petty right up front shows us… That if Tom Petty left Mudcrutch in 2007 he wouldn’t go to L.A., but NASHVILLE! Shit, nobody plays Petty’s new music anymore anyway. He could sell the SAME damn sound in the cowboy world, he wouldn’t even have to change the material or adopt a twang. That’s how close to rock today’s country is. Tom Petty is a GOD! Shit, everybody in Nashville knows "Free Fallin’".

Not that you’d ever hear it on Top Forty… Not even as an oldie. Whoops! Top Forty no longer even PLAYS oldies anymore. Not because they’re only looking forward, but what they played in the past is SO DAMN BAD!

"Sunday Morning In America"
Keith Anderson

This is MUCH better. But you want to reach into the computer screen and STRANGLE this son of a bitch. You drive down to the MEGACHURCH? This dude is playing to the same audience as W is. The ones who believe we live in a Christian country.

But if the lyrics were different. If this wasn’t a Republican anthem, you’d dig it.

I told myself I wouldn’t play it again, but it’s the kind of anthem that used to pour out of my Chevy convertible, back when I had that Chevy convertible, DECADES AGO! When life wasn’t about depression, but JOY! Listening to this stuff you can’t suppress the smile creeping up your face.

"Everytime I Hear Your Name"
Keith Anderson

Finally got over that song of ours
Stopped chasin’ little red sports cars
To check the license plates
And I quit drivin’ by your place

They depict this on sitcoms, the guy or gal who can’t get over their old love. They laugh about it. But it’s no laughing matter. You’re POSSESSED! Before the days of cell phones, you drove home to see if they left a message on your answering machine. You were CONVINCED they’d dial in. How could they move on, forget you. You’re TORTURED!

I feel rain fallin’ right out of the blue sky
And it’s the fifth of May, and I’m right there starin’ in your eyes
That’s all it takes, and I’m in that place
And there we are, parked down by the riverside
And I’m in your arms about to make love for the first time
And I can’t explain, but I’m in that place
Every time I hear your name

I still jump when someone mentions the name of an old girlfriend. They used to be here, we were so close, we knew each other’s secrets, but it’s been YEARS since we’ve connected. Do you still think of me?

You may want to hear about one gangsta shooting another. You might have lost your muse and need someone to bring sexy back.

Or maybe you did what you were supposed to, albeit with a few derailments from the track. But why do you have so many more questions than ANSWERS? Why are you so much smarter, but still DUMB? Does anybody else feel the same way?

In country songs.

Country songs are about life. I’m not sure what the rest of the popular music is about. Too much posing for me. All edgy and brittle, made for modern consumption.

Technology delivers new gadgets, but the human condition never changes. Please, someone, tell me that you feel like I do. It’s been years since Peter Frampton.

You can hear all the Keith Anderson tracks at: Keith Anderson Myspace, and doesn’t that guitar in "Everytime I Hear Your Name" sound like it’s lifted from Seals & Crofts’ "Summer Rain"?