A friend of mine turned 30 yesterday. I hope it wasn’t traumatic for him. It is, after all, just a number. I figure so long as you are living and learning you are doing just fine, through the hills and valleys, with the highs and lows, for the good times and the bad. It ain’t easy, never let it lull you into thinking it is. But there are little successes along the way that spur you along. We are anxiously awaiting next week. I call us Music Foggers "adrenaline junkies," because we thrive on the over the top requirements of doing our Marathons. Little sleep, hurried food, and yet, we live in the grace of the ‘Music Fog’ – that pure place where you are in present time, letting the sounds wash over you.

Thinking back on last year’s Fall Music Fog Marathon at Marathon Recorders in Nashville during Americana Fest in October, we were honored to have The Bottle Rockets perform for our cameras. I have loved this band for a decade and a half. They simply nail the human condition. They get the guy next door, that’s who they are. From their early albums, The Brooklyn Side and 24 Hours a Day, which were produced by Eric “Roscoe” Ambel; to the most recent, Lean Forward, which saw them reuniting with Roscoe, the themes have been constant, probative, even poetic. How ‘bout one about lost love today from Brian Henneman, Mark Ortmann, John Horton, and Keith Voegele. “Gravity Fails,” acoustic style. PS: The BRox will be at Old Settler’s Music Festival next month outside Austin. 

- Jessie Scott