Free Music Rules! | Music City Unsigned Blog

For FREE MUSIC downloads, go to NoiseTrade.com to get music by Ten Out of Tenn members Katie Herzig and Matthew Perryman Jones.

To check out the tour website, go to www.myspace.com/tenoutoftenn .

Ten out of Tenn. 10 bucks. 10 artists. When Griffin House, Butterfly Boucher, Andy Davis, Tyler James, Erin McCarley, Jeremy Lister, Trent Dabbs, Katie Herzig, K.S. Rhoads and Matthew Perryman Jones (and drummer Will Sayles) all decided to pile into Willy Nelson's old tour bus and hit the road, it resulted in the best concert I have ever been to in my life. Period.

In performing arts, there seems to be two theories. On one hand, there is the "James Bond Theory" that begins the performance with a bang, a visual stunner that makes you wonder what kind of wild ride you are in for. And then there is the "Classic Literature Theory," which begins and slowly builds into a grandiose climax. And from the names of these theories, we know which one offers the truly satisfying, moving experience. When Griffin House opened with the subdued and absurdly long titled "The Guy That Says Goodbye to You Is Out of His Mind," I had my hopes that this was Classic Literature. I wasn't disappointed.

The rotating cast introduced each other and one after another played music that reeked of something more than Willy's contact-high; hope, trouble, excitement, life. It wasn't manufactured, it wasn't fake; it was musicians who, as Davis told me after, "believed in the music being created." Each musician was backed up by the others and when they weren't, they hung out by the merch counter and talked to all who approached them. You could tell they actually enjoyed each others music because even when they didn't have a microphone in front of them, they bobbed to the music, played drums on their laps, or sang along with the rest of the crowd.

When 10 musicians who are worthy of playing a venue like Newport, Kentucky's Southgate House alone are gathered, playing as each others band, the sound that emerges fills the room. No artist was the same. Whether it was Herzig's "Wish You Well," sounding more raw, full, and inspired than the album version or Jeremy Lister standing alone with a guitar. Or when Trent Dabbs abandoned his guitar to grab the mic or Matthew Perryman Jones pleading voice singing about the place "where mystery can dance with truth." Or even "a little swamp music," when all 10 played a Bayou inspired foot-stompin', harmonica-and-trumpet-blowin', guitar-and-keys-rockin' version of Rhoads' "The Bayonet and the Cigarette." The music was passionate and real.

From the opening notes to the final version, sung in the midst of the crowd, of "I Shall Be Released" that would have made Dylan proud, Ten out of Tenn was a night of epic proportions. Two weeks earlier I had the chance to see Coldplay in Chicago. Impressive, grandiose, and polished, they put on a good show. But Ten out of Tenn was better.

MCU & TPS Together Again

Tim blogs about MCU's participation in the upcoming Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival