I'm watching The Highwaymen Live DVD, which I got for Christmas. There are a lot of clips on YouTube if you're interested.

Saw Crazy Heart the other day; its quite alright and if you're stuck for something to do on half price Tuesdays, do check it out. The movie didn't quite blow me away in total. Jeff Bridges is certainly brilliant, no complaints here if he wins the Oscar. Maggie Gyllenhaal does well in the thankless ... well, not quite the Manic Pixie Dream Girl role but close enough. The weak acting link is Colin Farrell (tho I like his songs on the soundtrack well enough). Maybe it was the Character but man he was WOODEN and I felt embarrassed for him having to act next to Bridges.

Bridges certainly does, apart from his own acting chops, have the boozy washed up country thing down, in a spine tingling way. On stage he looked crazily like Waylon, and in other light (mostly the Morning After the Night Before seedy kind of light) looked chillingly like Kris. The movie is based on a book and I wouldn't mind reading that. Of course I hope Ryan Bingham, who has a small role in the picture too, wins the Oscar for the song. The Stephen Bruton songs the characters sing, particularly "Falling an' Flying", are spot on, no wonder the soundtrack is top of the Americana charts for sales and radio plays right now.

This audience footage is interesting, of the Bridges/Farrell concert sections of the movie. The clip says it was half time at a Toby Keith gig -- gotta get that authentic country audience on film for free -- although in an iTunes Celebrity Playlist thing with Jeff Bridges I just listened to he said it was a Montgomery Gentry gig. I don't care enough to find out which is right (I assume the audience person has more incentive to know for sure than the Hollywood B+ lister) but it's interesting if you've seen the final thing.

EDIT!!!!!!! Apparently it is both. Toby Keith with Montgomery Gentry as back up band. This is how much I (don't) know about modern country music, folks.

If you have an iPhone and are a music lover you could do a lot worse than drop $2.49 on the TuneIn Radio app, which streams radio stations from ... well, just about everywhere. I've only had it a couple of days and haven't explored beyond the USA but I've heard great things about the African, Caribbean, South American stations you can get. Was just tuning into some bluegrass show on the legendary WSM Nashville and then surfed to Cajun Radio 1290 out of Lafayette. Been very impressed with its reliability on 3G, trundling on the bus down George St didn't even upset it. I'm told the bandwidth usage is very reasonable too, so all in all four hoofs and a tail up for TuneIn Radio.

Marianne Faithfull at the Opera House the other night was a very satisfying affair in front of an engaged and appreciative audience. She went through most of Easy Come, Easy Go plus the old stand-bys "The Ballad of Lucy Jordan", "Broken English", "As Tears Go By" and "Why'd You Do It."

The band mostly stayed out of the way and were good without being dazzling; they were a little heavy handed at times but I was in a box on the side so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that that was a function of the always loose acoustics in that room. There was a low musical point (for me) during "Sing Me Back Home" featuring a musical saw. We can finally answer the question, most robustly in the negative, whether a musical saw is any replacement for a pedal or lap steel. It's a party piece, comrades, not a musical instrument.

There's a fragment of "Broken English" here, questionable phone recording quality but evidence the old trooper is still in fine, passionate voice.

I did mildly enjoy the Leonard Cohen tribute a few years back, a Wilner and friends love-in along the same lines, but the concept does lend itself to self-indulgence and complacency. I thought this event offered all the pitfalls of Came So Far for Beauty (acts not learning the songs, lack of rehearsal etc) but with the added variables of uncertainty about outside acoustics, the weather and ambient noise of one of the country's busiest commuter and tourist hubs. The Opera House forecourt should be left to Australian Idol finales and triathlon finishing lines.

Despite Marianne Faithfull being singled out for a shellacking I'm still very excited about her solo show, it's hard to judge whether I would've felt so hostile to her performance. i don't really mind divas getting drunk and slurring out of tune, really, in fact I quite like it. I'll be sure to let you know Wednesday night.

Not Byron-related but kicking off the season in style is Marianne Faithfull only the week after next. Playing the Concert Hall at the Opera House -- ugh, I have a prejudice against it for popular music -- and I only have a seat at the back of one of the mezzanine boxes but still I can't wait.

"Solitude"

Then, Dan Sultan at the Factory on February 27th -- for a measly $20. For realsm his recent album of late 2009 -- Get Out While You Can -- is a gem of soul, rock and country. For twenty bucks you can't afford not to go.

The above dodgy but illustrative video of Dan was taken by me at the Blue Mountains Music Fest the year before last and that will be my next port of call, in March. As well as seeing two of the Bluesfest drawcards for me Chris Smither and Nanci Griffith, the rest of the line-up is superb. My posts from my previous visit. I'm sure there will be a number of new discoveries but I'm also looking forward to revisiting with the boys from Genticorum, who do fabulous traditional Quebec music.

As for the rest of the Byron folk, well The Flatlanders top the list but they haven't announced any sideshows yet. I'll be there when they do (they have to, right?) I've lined up to see Dr John and the Lower 911 at the Basement; seen him a few times before (but not for yonks) and I might have wavered but the opportunity for a show at a joint that size (real small) cannot be passed up. And ... that might be me tapped out for another year ...

Cool. Robert Duvall is mandatory for such a fillum. Sorta glad its fiction though, don't think this old world could cope with "a combination of Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and Merle Haggard." Talk about never getting out of this world alive.

Was dubious about Colin Farrell's tracks but he's not half bad -- none of the above but pretty passable for the job.

If I Needed You is IMHO in TVZ's bottom half of songs buts its the most covered go figure.

I beg to differ with the writers of the "Goofs" section of IMDB for it though:

Revealing mistakes: When Tommy and Bad walk out of a restaurant supposedly in Phoenix, cars are shown with Arizona licence plates on their front bumpers. Arizona does not provide licence plates for front bumpers.

Perhaps they don't provide them nor make them mandatory (FREEDOM, Y'ALL!), but my sister lives in Arizona and she has New South Wales plates on the front of her rig -- goof writers need to use more imagination as to how such a car park might exist!

1. Easy Come Easy Go - Marianne Faithfull. I got this back in January and here it still is, top of the list.
2. Blood and Candle Smoke - Tom Russell. Typically full-bore TR effort of weaving biography and myth, now with mariachi horns
3. The Bright Mississippi - Allen Toussaint. Refreshing, transfixing, dreamy masterclass
4. Midnight at the Movies - Justin Townes Earle. No sophomore nerves here, proving the first album was not a fluke.
5. Hills and Valleys - The Flatlanders. Slipped a little in list over time but still an album of a grade Americana song to song
6. Traditions in Transition - Quantic and his Combo Barbaro. Genre tinkering with respect and passion, Latin on the wild side
7. One to the Head, One to the Heart - Gretchen Peters. What I said at the time
8. A Friend of a Friend - David Rawlings Machine. Should be higher really, but couldn't drop anything.
9. Mountain Soul II - Patty Loveless. Infectious bluegrassy country, highly polished but full of affection
10. Get Out While You Can - Dan Sultan. Well now, I only got this yesterday so given a few more days it could have really shot up the charts. Brilliant collection of soul, country and blues and heaps more soul. Dan is a star, no doubt.
11. Potato Hole - Booker T From the show in April
12. What Have You Done My Brother? - Naomi Shelton and the Gospel Queens. Preach it, sister
13. Dirt Town City Limits - Mat d and the Profane Saints. See Jim's great review.
14 Today, Tomorrow and Forever - Pete Molinari feat. The Jordanaires. Only an EP, but a perfectly formed one.
15. For the Mission Baby -- Malcolm Holcombe.
16. Ready for the Flood - Gary Louris and Mark Olsen. Was rather "meh" on it for eight of the last nine months but sort of started to grow on me ....
17. Animals in the Dark - William Elliott Whitmore. Should be higher also, what can you do? Lists are stupid. Hat tip Phineas, some very cathartic tracks on here believe me.
18. Cotton - Sam Baker. Also needs more time but exceptional story songs and that kind of creaky Texas voice I love.
19. Lucky One - Raul Malo A little bit country, a little bit croony, very pleasant listening.
20. The Soul of Black John - John Black