alt.country

I just had to laugh at the following posted by Wil Wheaton over at his blog:

If you like Wilco or Uncle Tupelo, you must get Son Volt's first album Trace.
Heh. If the 1990 me ever met the 2005 me and discovered that I'd become a fan of alt.country, I think I'd kick me in the nuts. Goddamn know-it-all 18 year-olds.

My S.O. first came into the alt.country fold upon his hearing of Son Volt's Trace, and that has turned into an assumption of him always being into alt.country and growing up on "the old stuff" to people just becoming acquainted with him. I assumed this of him for a while until I found out the truth: that I was listening to country before he was. My best friend in high school listened to nothing but country, where I was raised on oldies and top 40 pop. She brought me, er...forced me into the fold in 1990; Son Volt didn't release their first until 1995, and I'm not exactly sure when he discovered it. But, even though I was immersed at least 5 years before he was, he's got me on the knowledge; he knows more about the history and the current than I ever have or ever will. My ears came around to alternative in 1993, and by the end of college country was phased out until he came into my life with his breadth of knowledge of the country tradition.

Saturday night we attended the Hank III show at The Dame, and brought along my sister and her husband. She was a big fan of Hank Jr. back in her redneck days so I figured she might enjoy seeing his son. It was a hot, sticky, hell-raising evening and she enjoyed the show, but not the crowd. It was a bit on the rowdy side, even for a Hank III show; the drunken frat boy first-weekend-back-to-school element made a huge difference. It was a great show, even better than the first one I saw last year. I'm used to a rollicking crowd, there was hardly a weekend that I wasn't out seeing a rock show for about 4 solid years, but this show even had a tad bit of moshing once they went into the hard-core part of the show. They were doing a lot of "dancing" during the country set, so I wasn't surprised the "dancing" turned to moshing for the hard-core set. The country set was blistering and fast-paced and a down-home good ole' time was had by all.

ADDITION: If you click on the alt.country link above in the Wil Wheaton post, it will take you to a definition of what alt.country is in Wikipedia. It lists a myriad of other names for the movement. The one I like best is "y'allternative". Too funny.