Two notable things have spawned out of wasilla, alaska in the last decade or so. One of them is sarah palin and the other is Portugal. The man.
This band has been named dropped every so often around here and for good reason, they're cool as shit. Having just dropped their album "Evil Friends" this june they're finally actually catching wind and getting some noteriety. Their first full album, also produced by danger mouse; every track on it is exquisite and definitely worth a listen if not several.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8e1sSNsf44this is probably my favorite video from the album because it portrays some really cool stuff you can only do in alaska for instance blowing craters in permafrost with an automatic shotgun and street legal ATVs.
I'm gonna delve into the backwoods now, because I've found some pretty cool country recently. But not your generic kind, but a rebellious punk offbrand of it.
The first and foremost is the band "Lucero" who you've probably actually heard without even realizing it. If you've played red dead redemption the awesome soundtrack from the game is from a grouping of several southern artists, one of which being a member from the band lucero. They've got a meloncholy and grizzly kind of sound which could best be described as if the clash met johnny cash with a whole lotta liquor. The frontman Ben Nichols is the brother of Jeff Nichols. The writer and director if the movie "Mud", which is an incredible movie if you haven't seen it yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mud_%282012_film%29Both are highly talented and most of the soundtrack for the movie mud was done by ben and lucero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBeevjTLtvIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r4Ymyeuw_EAnd so we come to a familiar name, hank williams. This hank williams is the third incarnation and a little bit different than the others. At first this hank didn't wanna be a country star, he wanted to be a punk and he was for awhile until his blood caught up with him, literally. Because of three years of unpaid child support. the product of a one night stand this hank didn't even know about; he went from playing in a punk and metal band making 50$ a night to signing a country label.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpEo3lWTTYchttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Le_vHnVPL5c