::: from L.A. Weekly :: April 14, 2005 :: by Jonny Whiteside :::

MIKE STINSON AT LAVA LOUNGE.

One of a relatively few native Southerners currently cooking up country music here in Los Angeles, the Virginia-born singer-songwriter Mike Stinson uses somewhat of a sucker-punch technique, combining an easygoing vocal style with his own craftily heavyweight emotional lyrics; his album titles, Jack of All Heartache and Last Fool at the Bar, make clear which side of the street Stinson favors, but heÕs no mere mope. His latter-day classic, Late Great Golden State, a wistfully elegiac appreciation of our now-ghostly C&W heritage, is a credible, corn-free backward glance with a rare quality that has earned him a rank as one of the potentially great modern Hollywood country cats. (Jonny Whiteside)



::: from L.A. City Beat :: March 2005 :: by Ron Garmon :::

THIS OLD GOD COUNTRY

Bill Kirchen's great "Truck Stop at the End of the World" ground the gears into Dixie overdrive just before Mike Stinson and his band called down the Old Gods. Stinson fronts a group that could've graced any of the back-of-the-holler tonks of my Virginia boyhood. Cognoscenti accustomed to sawdust floors, balling in the parking lot, and the odd patron having his hair parted with a Smith & Wesson .38 would've had these guys back for multiple encores, perhaps even at gunpoint. As it was, they cranked impressive energy from the stiffs before them. Stinson swears fealty to the likes of George Jones and Ray Price, and Dwight Yoakam covered his gently bitter "The Late Great Golden State." All the songs demonstrated an astonishing mastery of every nuance of traditional country music, with the singer's eccentric nasal rasp adding a plangent squeak to the old, old stories. They rocked harder as the set wore on; this was the first performance of their four-week residency at the Echo, and they're worth many times what you won't spend somewhere else.



::: from L.A. Alternative Press :: October 2004 :: by Johnny Angel :::

10 MOST INTRIGUING BANDS
MIKE STINSON

I couldn't get a job playing drums full-time for anyone in any style, so I started writing and singing songs in my own style. And that would be Ôtears in your beer' honky-tonkin' old time country." So says Mike Stinson, the 36-year-old transplant from Onancock, Virginia who is very likely the best contemporary songwriter in that vein. Not just here in L.A., mind you, but everywhereÑDwight Yoakam and Billy Bob Thornton have covered Stinson's "Late Great Golden State" and more will surely discover this soon to be un-obscure songsmith, as clubgoers at M Bar, El Cid and King King already have.

With an ace three-piece behind him that includes ex-X guitarist Tony Gilkyson and former Izzy Stradlin bassist Jimmy Ashurst, Stinson's band sticks to the bedrock of pure country. The kind of music that is so deeply ingrained as to be familiar to anyone whose preference in rural roots music by white people goes back further than Shania Twain. While it might be cool to hear the wail of a fiddle or the keening whine of steel, it is stripped to its basics and just plain fine for now.

Unassuming and soft-spoken, Stinson still does a fair amount of session drumming, from acts as diverse as Vic Chestnutt to Liz Phair and even to Christina Aguillera ("My friend Linda Perry was producing, so I did it, pretty cool, huh?" he opines). He bangs the traps live for Randy Weeks and others also. But despite his skills as a timekeeper, he's even stronger as a keen observer of the human condition in all its joys and miseries. Putting out a nine-song disc, "Jack of all Heartaches," on his own Big Ol' label, which features the self-penned heartbreak classic, "I Just Don't Think So," as well as "Late, Great, Golden State," and seeing it do well with those in "the know," Stinson's goals now are greater. "I'd like to see someone pick the thing up and get it further out. I won't just sit around and do nothing if they don't, but that's my goal."

Having played four different Gram Parsons tribute festivals as a fan if not an obvious heir, Stinson doesn't reject the mantle of the former Flying Burrito Brother. In fact, he somewhat embraces it, even though he seems considerably saner and more centered. But if you ever loved that kind of dazed-yet-pure take on the soul music of the pale-skinned, you'll love Mike. For every self-conscious Boho that apes the Cosmic Cowboy, there's the real deal and he's right here. Catch a set and enjoy a master at work Ñ in a time where making a show of "genuineness" is dog-tired, Mike Stinson doesn't even need break a sweat.



::: from Los Angeles Magazine :: August 2004 :: by Tony Peyser :::

BEST COUNTRY-WESTERN BAND IN L.A.
MIKE STINSON

The cosmic country music of Gram Parsons is alive and kicking in L.A. Its primary practitioner is reedy-voiced hipster Mike Stinson, whose hard-rocking honky-tonk is raising roofs and breaking hearts all over town from The Scene in Glendale to The Cinema Bar in Culver City. His sound evokes Buck Owens' Bakersfield and Parsons' Joshua Tree. "Late Great Golden State" from his 2002 debut, Jack Of All Heartache, was covered by Dwight Yoakam and should be California's official anthem. "Tomorrow's Gonna Hurt" from Stinson's new album, tentatively titled The Last Fool At The Bar, shows there are more instant classics where that came from. Backed by the sublimely cool former X guitarist, Tony Gilkyson, drummer Jason Moore and bassist James Ashhurst, Stinson's rollicking sets may not offer blood but have plenty of sweat and beers.



::: from The Los Angeles Times :: December 18, 2003 :: by Robert Hilburn :::

For anyone who loves the music of Gram Parsons, John Prine, or Ron Sexsmith. Not only are Stinson's shows around town a bargain (sometimes $7, rarely more than $10), but you also don't have to buy tickets in advance. He plays smaller rooms, such as the Cinema Bar and the Silver Lake Lounge, offering songs that range from the honky-tonk spunk of "Jack of All Heartache" to the wistful social observation of "Late Great Golden State." He's one of Los Angeles' best kept musical secrets.



::: from The Los Angeles Times :: April 6, 2003 :: article by Robert Hilburn :::

Even if you've never heard any of the songs by the man described as the king of L.A.'s neo-honky tonk scene, you'll probably find yourself singing along with lots of them during his set.

Stinson writes songs in the classic manner -- songs that have a heart and a hook. They are mostly about faded love, but they sometimes move into social observation (such as "Late Great Golden State") in ways that should remind you of the days Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman wrote together.

Stinson's voice isn't polished enough for mainstream radio, but it conveys well the everyman qualities of his songs. John Prine fans shouldn't waste a minute in checking him out.



::: from The LA Weekly :: Jan 10-16, 2003 :: article by Chris Morris :::

Six Pack of Lonely : Mike Stinson in the Late Great Golden State

Pulling on his third or fourth Coors Silver Bullet of the afternoon, Mike Stinson muses about his move to L.A. 11 years ago, after a long stint "playin' hippie music" up and down the Eastern seaboard.

Stinson remembers, "I just thought, 'All the songs I'm playin' are 20-some years old, and I need to get with it. I need to move to L.A. and play some contemporary music.'" He pauses, then adds with the self-deprecating chuckle that dots much of his conversation, "'Course, then I ended up playin' songs that are 40 years old."

They sound more like 50 years old, actually, but who's counting. Armed with a rock-bred sensibility and an autodidact's instinctive understanding of '50s and '60s hardwood-floor country, Stinson has developed an affecting and authentic-sounding bag of original tunes that at once reflect and update the barroom ethos of such titans as George Jones, Ray Price, Buck Owens and Willie Nelson.

In the year and a half since he stepped out from behind his drum kit, strapped on a Telecaster and started fronting his own band, Stinson has become, for a growing legion of local fans, the uncrowned King of the L.A. Neo-Honky-Tonkers -- or, as the title song on his self-released album would have it, the "Jack of All Heartache." Humble to a fault, Stinson would reject any claim to nobility, but those who have observed his progress over a run of local shows this year would agree that among a growing throng of L.A. country-rock performers, he is the uncontested ruler.

"They say it's like the Replacements playin' country music," says Stinson. "It's not really on purpose. I'm tryin' to do justice to an old style of music. We're just playin' the best we know how, which is kinda rock & roll."

Stinson's seemingly sudden arrival comes after a lengthy apprenticeship as a drummer. Raised on Virginia's Delmarva Peninsula, he started hitting the tubs in his early teens, fired up by a short list of hard-punching rock skinmen: Charlie Watts, Dallas Taylor of Manassas and Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jim Keltner and The Band's Levon Helm.

Though he cites Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Tom Petty, J.J. Cale and Little Feat as early inspirations, Stinson -- who had moved to Washington, D.C. to study audio engineering and "to learn how to drink and chase skirts" at American University -- spent three years drumming with a Grateful Dead tribute act who worked 200 nights a year at East Coast frat parties. Finally fed up with that gig's low financial ceiling, Stinson moved to L.A. in 1991. He says he played "Hollywood-style" with ex-Gang of Four bassist Dave Allen; current Sweethearts of the Rodeo front man Bryson Jones' Lost Highway; and the Stones-oriented Magic Christian Band.

In 1995, Stinson, a lifelong Stones freak, read Victor Bockris' biography of Keith Richards, and encountered the influential shade of Gram Parsons, the Stones guitarist's great friend and country-music tutor. He bought a CD containing the L.A. country-rock architect's two early-'70s solo albums, and his musical life was altered forever.

Stinson, whose Parsonsesque shag hairdo frames his unglamorous mug, says, "I started learnin' those songs and how to play 'em. I started to realize that's where my heart is. I think it's the lyrical content -- the songs are so much better written than most of the rock songs I was playin' at the time. Gram's voice is wonderful, just conveys the whole sadness of those lyrics in a way I really related to."

Learning of Parsons' affection for George Jones, Stinson began an archaeological dig through classic country. "Lucky thing," he recalls, "at the time I worked at PolyGram Publishing, in the tape room, and I was the guy who went to Tower Records when they needed somethin'. My boss told me it was okay to grab somethin' for myself, and I picked up three or four new CDs a week for almost two years. I just cleaned the country music section out. I had every Johnny Cash record, every Willie Nelson, every George Jones compilation, every fuckin' thing, and listened to it all, man."

In 1995, burning to re-create the honky-tonk music with which he had become obsessed, Stinson began to write. "When I heard that template for a country song that Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard can do so well, Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard, those people -- I just really wanted to write songs like that. That's a framework I can understand, that makes sense to me. You can't fuck with it too much. It's like a beautiful, simple art form."

From the late '90s through 2000, Stinson, still pounding the skins, honed his writing chops in the countrified bands the Second Fiddles and the High Horses, both of which included songwriter Andy Jones among their members. Jones custom-tooled the bluesy lament "L.A. Cowboy" for Stinson, and his compositions "The Bottle and Me" and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" remain cornerstones of Stinson's set today. Jones exited the music scene in 2000, felled by a serious illness. Stinson had by then penned "When My Angel Gets High" and "Late Great Golden State," naked Parsons-inflected songs that would reappear on Jack of All Heartache.

As he tells it, Stinson hit an emotional wall around the time Jones was sidelined. "I'd just broken up with the girl who all those songs [on Jack of All Heartache] are about, and had surgery on my ankle," he says. "I was laid up with a cast on my foot, the girl gone off with somebody else, and just wanted to fuckin' die, you know? Couldn't play drums, nothin'. Was just hatin' life."

Salvation appeared in the form of singer-songwriter Ramsay Midwood, who offered him a gig with his rootsy band Waynesboro, a fixture at Culver City's cozy Cinema Bar. His foot healed, Stinson began tub-thumping with Midwood; after Midwood moved to Austin, Texas in early 2001, Stinson moved to Waynesboro bandmate Randy Weeks' group. (He still performs with Weeks every other Saturday at the Cinema -- his lone extracurricular commitment.) That band also included former Lone Justice and X guitarist Tony Gilkyson and bassist Kip Boardman.

Filled with pain and armed with a portfolio of stomping, tear-stained country-rock songs, Stinson finally began fronting his own group in the summer of 2001. Late that year, producer Charlie McGovern recorded the no-budget yet crisp-sounding Jack of All Heartache with Stinson, Gilkyson, Boardman and ex-Lone Justice and Emmylou Harris drummer Don Heffington in a succession of L.A. living rooms.

The album (still locally available only at Amoeba and Rhino) and the live shows that succeeded its release showcased everything Stinson does best. They introduced a catalog of tunes -- "I Can't Call Virginia," "Last Fool at the Bar," "Six Pack of Lonely," "The Desert of My Heart" -- steeped in Coors-drenched misery, sometimes leavened with low-key mirth, alternately fiercely rocking and tenderly subdued. On stage, the material was animated by Stinson's aw-shucks demeanor and his oddly moving singing voice -- an adenoidal, wobbly drawl, frayed paper-thin in the upper register, that occasionally called to mind the uncertain pitch and heart-piercing impact of Ernest Tubb. The tunes were rammed home by a solid, unmannered rhythm section (today comprising bassist Lucas Cheadle and drummer Jason Moore) and unpredictably ornamented by Gilkyson's what-the-hell-was-that? solo work.

This summer, as the pressure reading on the L.A. country-rock barometer soared, Stinson could be found playing almost weekly all over town -- the Cinema, the Silverlake Lounge, the Derby in Los Feliz, Taix in Echo Park, Topper's in Eagle Rock. In these gin mills and beer joints, he has introduced a new brace of saloon-friendly songs -- "Take Out the Trash," "I Can't Go Out Anymore," "I Don't Even Cross Your Mind" -- awash in alcohol and anguish.

Killing another Silver Bullet, Stinson says, "People ask me, 'Why do you have to be so sad?' My mom in particular: 'Gosh, I'm glad you're writin' songs now, but do they all have to be so sad? It just breaks my heart.' The type of song that moves me the most is that type of song. I've got through my moody, depressed times, and then I realized that you can't put that on everybody around you. Everybody's got their own shit to worry about, and they don't have to deal with the black cloud that you're carryin' around. So I try not to do that with people . . . but I do it in my songs."



::: from No Depression Magazine :: Jan-Feb, 2003 :: article by Tony Peyser :::

Mike Stinson: No More Drummer Jokes

Across the North Hollywood diner, a man is staring at us. Across the table from me is Mike Stinson, who looks so much like Gram Parsons that his recent participation in Gram Fest at Joshua Tree seems as unnecessary as an Elvis impersonator going to Graceland. But those who dress up as The King rarely have talent. Stinson, on the other hand, has talent to burn.

A 34-year old Virginia native, Stinson was playing drums not long ago with Waynesboro, a band fronted by Ramsay Midwood (whose debut CD was recently picked up by Vanguard Records). One of Stinson's first gigs with Waynesboro was at the Cinema Bar in Culver City, just south of Los Angeles. When Stinson belted out Chuck Berry's "Going Back To Memphis", the big crowd in the small dive was stunned. With his nasally twang and high-voltage spirit, Stinson instantly proved a welcome addition to the band.

Stinson played drums in a succession of little-known bands for more than a decade. He moved from Virginia to Los Angeles in 1991, and in 1997 began making the transition to guitarist-singer, including a couple of projects with Johnny Irion (whose solo debut came out last year on Yep Roc Records).

Some seemingly promising recording sessions resulted, one with Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes producing, the other with members of both the Crowes and Little Feat participating, but nothibng ever was released.

Finally, Stinson has his own solo debut, the self-released Jack of All Heartache, and his own band, which includes Tony Gilkyson (from X) on lead guitar, Lucas Cheadle on bass, and Jason Moore on drums. Stinson opted to not play drums in his own band because he sensed audiences found it odd. "I know they're thinking, 'Is he the singer or the drummer or what?'" he reflects. "Besides, it's easier to lead a band when you're standing in the front as opposed to sitting in the back."

Jack of All Heartache features nine honky-tonking tunes, and Stinson hits the sweet spot on damn near all of them. "Late Great Golden State" portrays Los Angeles as a place where dreamers never get over the thought of starting over: "Nice place for a clean slate/But leave your expectations at the gate."

Stinson hasn't given up on the drums completely; he spent some time in November in the studio with Vic Chesnutt (whose new album is tentatively set for a late March release on New West).

As we're about to leave the diner, the guy who's been eyeing us all evening tentatively approaches and quietly announces, "I'm a huge fan." My pleasantly surprised companion thanks the stranger and shakes his hand.

Tangible proof that Mike Stinson's long years of hard work are starting to pay off.

- Tony Peyser



::: from Billboard Magazine :: Nov 2, 2002 :: article by Chris Morris :::

Country Rockers Kickin' Up New Scene In L.A. Clubs

By Chris Morris

November 02, 2002

LOS ANGELES - On a recent Wednesday night, Jessi Colter stood in an alley behind Miracle Mile District bar Molly Malone's, teaching the chord changes of Ray Price's "Invitation to the Blues" to a group of young musicians gathered in a semi-circle around her.

Colter, the queen of '70s outlaw country and the widow of Waylon Jennings, was drawn to the event by blood ties: Her son Shooter Jennings frequently sings with the house band at the club's monthly country-rock jam-fest, Sweethearts of the Rodeo. But her involvement runs deeper than family obligations.

Producer/musician Dusty Wakeman, a veteran of the L.A. country scene and bassist in the Sweethearts house band, says, "Jessi Colter, who we've played with three times now, always says she feels like she's back at ['70s L.A. country incubator] the Troubadour with Waylon and [Kris] Kristofferson and those guys."

Indeed, an explosive new energy is emanating from L.A.'s country-rock players. A huge crop of performers - some of them seasoned local players doing their most mature work, others newly emigrated from the South and Southeast - are kicking up the dirt. Virtually any night of the week, a solid country show can be found in established Hollywood clubs and hole-in-the-wall bars alike. The situation has all the classic hallmarks of a legitimate scene: The musicians show up at each others' gigs, share each others' stages, and play on each others' records, and a hardcore pack of fans follows them from show to show.

All the action has not eluded the luminaries who emerged from past L.A. country-rock scenes. Dwight Yoakam - who blasted to prominence out of the early-'80s L.A. cowpunk scene - has been casing the local clubs recently and in September played a four-song set at another regular jam-oriented show, the King King's Eastbound and Down.

Yoakam says, "I was really taken with the total immersion into the purity and the rediscovery of country music, as an outgrowth of the culture and the environment, and was really blown away by it."

Singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams - a current club fixture who recently moved back to L.A., where she established her reputation in the late '80s - put her view succinctly at Molly Malone's in early October: "There's more country music in L.A. right now than there ever was in Nashville, Tenn."

That said, the industry still hasn't fully awakened to the L.A. scene. While Robbie Robertson recently signed the band Eastmountainsouth to DreamWorks, the music currently lives on self-released records and in the clubs.

As guitarist Keith Gattis, a Music Row veteran, observes, "Everybody would love to have a song on the radio and a record on a big label, but they're not doin' it for that. Everybody's just playin' music that they like . . . It doesn't seem like anybody's tryin' to play a certain game just to make that happen. I lived in Nashville eight years, and I've seen those games, you know."

ANGELS AND OUTLAWS

Performers on the L.A. scene universally make one point clear: Their style ain't alt-country. "This music has nothin' to do with Uncle Tupelo," says Bryson Jones, the Sweethearts' brazen frontman and leader of country-rock unit the Snake Handlers.

The local players are rock'n'rollers, and the shadow of the Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons - the late Florida-born, Georgia-bred musician who formulated the L.A. country-rock template in the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers - looms long over the scene.

Jones - who, like many of the players on the scene, is a transplanted Southerner - observes, "You grow up, you're this Southern kid, and your parents are listening to country music. Invariably you're going to rebel and get into rock'n'roll. But then you still feel this country stuff drawin' you and really pullin' at you. [Parsons'] gift [to us] was, 'Hey, you can be young and you can be flashy and you can have long hair and you can do this stuff.' "

Virginian Mike Stinson, whose vibrant take on old-school honky-tonk music has made him perhaps the leading L.A. light of the moment, came to hardcore country via his love for the Rolling Stones and their close associate Parsons. "I said, 'Well, if Gram likes George Jones, I better go listen to George Jones,' " Stinson says. "That was it, man. That just opened the floodgates."

Matt Reasor, the prodigious 25-year-old songwriter/guitarist of High or Hellwater, is a Nashville native who was introduced to the L.A. posse by Parsons' daughter Polly, a scene habituŽ. Reasor says, "That's what I was - Gram Parsons and the Band and outlaw country."

Jonny Kaplan, the lanky, boyish leader of the Lazy Stars, recalls, "I grew up listening to FM rock radio in Philadelphia, but I always was intrigued by blues and slide guitars and stuff like that - Joe Perry and Keith Richards and all that stuff. And I made my way toward country music through the Stones and Aerosmith, believe it or not. I was always searching for where the sounds that I liked came from."

Unsurprisingly, some practitioners of L.A.'s hard-edged sound have had sour experiences in Nashville.

Jones was signed to a deal with Warner Bros. in the early '90s and was shipped off to Music City to write, only to be unceremoniously dropped. He says, "I looked basically the same as I do now, like a rock guy dressed country. They didn't know what to do with me."

His experience is echoed by that of Gattis, the hot guitar slinger for Eastbound and Down's house band. An Austin native, he released a traditional-sounding album on RCA in 1996.

He cut a second, more experimental album; he recalls, "[The label] decided they didn't know what to do with it . . . The whole scene there got so sterile and so plastic for me. Even though there were a few cats playin' good country music, it was just not that cool."

Gattis moved to L.A. 15 months ago and flirted with rock'n'roll, but he says, "As soon as I got here, I started playin' with country guys that were really doin' some cool shit. It's like, 'Oh, wow, this is where my heart is and my home is.' "

Though their roots-based "ambient country" sound is nothing like the brawling stuff played by most of the country-rock locals, Eastmountainsouth has been embraced by the burgeoning scene.

Virginia-born singer Kat Maslich, who is partnered in the group with Alabama native Peter Adams, says, "I've been out here 12 or 13 years now, off and on, and it's never been like this. It's great. Maybe people are beginning to realize that they want to hear something - for lack of a better word, not to sound pretentious - a little bit more cerebral than just straight-ahead bubble-gum pop music here in L.A."

BACK TO THE BARROOMS

The L.A. country-rock pot has finally been stirred by the widespread availability of gigs after a long fallow period. In the mid-'90s, the Palomino, North Hollywood's country showplace, closed for good; musician Ronnie Mack's 14-year-old free-for-all Barn Dance, which continues today at Crazy Jack's in Burbank, was for many years about the only avenue for exposure.

Stinson, who drummed in a succession of country-rock acts for a decade, notes, "Gigs were hard to get, because nobody gave a shit."

But clubs have now flung their doors wide open for the music. The Cinema Bar, a minuscule joint in Culver City, has been the scene's West Side epicenter for two years. Randy Weeks, formerly of the '80s country unit the Lonesome Strangers, packs the house there every other Saturday night with a stellar band featuring Stinson and former X and Lone Justice guitarist Tony Gilkyson; promoter Charlotte Chamberlain's Wednesday-night session, the Tip Jar, has played host to such talents as Stinson, Tracy Huffman and Dan Janisch's country-tinged yet indefinable band Mule, and songstress Ileen Goldsmith.

Performers at the Cinema play for tips only, and the bar does not advertise. Chamberlain says, "I realized I don't really have to work that hard - let's just let the music take it where it needs to go. And Rod [Castillo], the owner, has always been very supportive."

Weeks says of working nose to nose with the audience in the small, overheated room, "It's just a great musical experience. The crowd is involved. They're not far away from you . . . I can play there all night, not worry about bringing in a crowd, 'cause there'll be a crowd. I don't need more bands to make a crowd, so I get to play two, three hours. You can be much more spontaneous, do whatever the heck you want to do."

Sweethearts of the Rodeo, which takes its name from the Byrds' epochal 1968 country-rock opus, has held the fort at Molly Malone's for two years. Virtually every scenester of note has sat in with its house band, which includes Jones, Wakeman, Kaplan, drummers Dave Raven and Mitch Marine, and steel player Chris Lawrence. Featured performers have included chanteuse Grey De Lisle, punk-country stormers Speedbuggy, and the aptly named Psychedelic Cowboys. This summer, the tiny Irish pub expanded into an adjacent space to make room for the throngs the monthly shows draw.

Scene doyenne Shilah Morrow, who promotes the monthly event with Lisa Jenkins, says, "Instead of trying to compete, it's about embracing each other and helping support an overall scene that's going to help everybody. A lot of these nights are cover-oriented nights, with some originals thrown in. Everybody is bringing their audience to the table, and in turn that audience is becoming fans and getting turned on to other artists."

In July, Little Rock, Ark.-born actress and country fan Joey Lauren Adams and Victoria Vaughn - sister of actor Vince Vaughn - began promoting their wildly popular monthly Sunday-night show, Eastbound and Down, at the King King in Hollywood. The house band, which covers a broad range of material in the Hank Williams Jr. / Waylon Jennings mode, includes Gattis, Travis Howard, and Waylon Payneson of Willie Nelson's guitarist, Jody Payne, and singer Sammi Smith.

Adams, who says her efforts have been actively encouraged by Morrow and others, has seen the growth of a new group of fans at her shows.

"The first night I invited everybody I knew," she says, "and they've known I like country music but never liked it themselves. They came down to the night and then called and said, 'That's country music? I like that!' "

MONTHLY GATHERINGS

Monthly acoustic country gatherings have flourished in Hollywood: Morrow's Tears in My Beer at the Hotel CafŽ, Western Beat at Highland Grounds, the Rural Review at Genghis Cohen. At the same time, the local bands rock a far-flung variety of saloons and beer joints: Topper's Tavern in Eagle Rock, Taix Lounge in Echo Park, the Silver Lake Lounge in Silver Lake, and, most recently, the Scene in Glendale, where Kaplan fronts his own weekly jam, Free and Easy.

Though Eastmountainsouth is recording its DreamWorks album with producer Mitchell Froom and De Lisle has signed a pact with Sugar Hill Records, most of the L.A. country-rockers have documented their work only on self-released indie records. Stinson, High or Hellwater, I See Hawks in L.A., and Speedbuggy, among others, have albums in the racks; Gattis, Payne, and Kaplan have albums or EPs finished.

Corrie Gregory, co-owner of the online/mail-order Americana retailer Miles of Music, says, "Mike Stinson has been consistently in our top sellers. He's been selling like crazy. Grey [De Lisle] has been selling like crazy." But she also notes, "All of a sudden there's this buzz, and nobody's paying attention to it. You're not seeing any of the press outside of Los Angeles even acknowledging that this is going on."

Musician/producer Greg DaPonte - who has played tracks by Stinson, Weeks, Gilkyson, and Eastmountainsouth on his weekly show Night Song on public radio KCRW Santa Monica - says that the music still remains largely an underground phenomenon seeking a commercial figurehead.

DaPonte says, "What it takes, usually, is one person to break through, and then a few people can ride on the coattails of that, and the rest fall by the wayside."

But DaPonte feels that the scene's self-supporting intimacy, as well as the devotion of its local audience, will carry it forward: "The living room is almost in the club. If you go to the Sweethearts thing, the living room is in the club. If you go to the Cinema Bar, you might as well be at Randy Weeks' house, and he might as well be having a house party . . . It's a very supportive, enthusiastic kind of thing."

Bryson Jones sees it the same way: "We all respect each other. We all like what each other was doin', and I think we've all grown up enough that we're all over that competition . . . I'm stunned by the [fans'] dedication. People will go out all the time, and people are really passionate about this music, and that's a beautiful thing, both on [the part of] the crowd and the musicians."



::: from Billboard Magazine :: July 27, 2002 :: article by Chris Morris :::

A couple of weeks back, we caught a last-minute set by singer/songwriter Mike Stinson at the Derby in Los Angeles and were duly impressed when we bought his debut album Jack of All Heartache, on his own Big Ol' Records imprint.

Stinson is still pretty much a local phenomenon on the L.A. country-rock scene. A Virginia native, he moved to Southern California 11 years ago and played in what he calls "country-fried rock bands" like the High Horses and the Second Fiddles before striking out on his own about a year ago.

A regular performer at the Derby and Culver City's Cinema Bar, he first set up shop at the Silverlake Lounge, which he describes as "kind of a trashy beer joint, [so] my music fits very well there."

Fit well, it does. Stinson is a class-A songwriter in the old-fangled honky-tonk mode; he cites role models as varied as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, George Jones, and Ray Price alongside such adept rock songwriters as Neil Young and Bob Dylan. Naturally, as he lives in L.A., Gram Parsons has a key position in his style. His bottle-full-o'-heartbreak tunes owe a clear debt to the late Flying Burrito Brothers maestro; physically, Stinson resembles a pug-dog version of Parsons.

Stinson is a formidable songsmith, and there's nary a clinker among the nine originals on his album. The title cut, "Late Great Golden State," and "When My Angel Gets High" lead the pack qualitatively.

He is backed on the album and live by a top-flight band fronted by guitarist Tony Gilkyson, a do-anything picker best-known for his stint in X. "We did a couple of coffeehouse things acoustically," Stinson says of Gilkyson. "He volunteered his band to back me up and do some proper gigs. It was 'instant band.' He's an absolutely perfect complement."



::: from the Pasadena Weekly :: September 19, 2002 :: article by Bliss :::

The Sun's Finally Shining on Mike Stinson in the "Late Great Golden State"

Funny how buzz works: Word spreads about some musician making the rounds - "Have you heard this great new guy Stinson?" "Ooh, he's just like Gram Parsons!" - and pretty soon you see a growing caravan rocking and whirling at his gigs.

Except rock-drummer-turned-country-songwriter/frontman Mike Stinson isn't new. And he doesn't sound "just like Gram Parsons," though Parsons was an important gateway artist for him. His influences are clearly discernible but the truth is, Stinson doesn't sound quite like anyone else. That's a key reason why there's so much excitement about him.

A sweet, funny, hard-working Southern boy who's as real as it gets but savvier than he sometimes lets on, Stinson's been busting tail for his chance at Hollywood's maddeningly elusive brass ring over a decade of drumming behind numerous on-the-verge rock and country acts: Low Pop Suicide, Rise, Chris Stills, A.J. Croce, Lost Highway, Second Fiddles, High Horses, Waynesboro and Randy Weeks and Ramsay Midwood. For the past year or so he's been attracting a loyal following with his own electric, game-for-anything band - X guitarist Tony Gilkyson, drummer Jason Moore, bassist Lucas Cheadle - and is garnering impressive notices for "Jack of All Heartache," his independently released debut album about the loss of a longtime love. His hang-steady tenacity throughout years of "dirtball gigs" has left him a dynamic, respected presence centerstage on L.A.'s newly re-energized Americana/roots-music scene.

"I couldn't get sneezed at here for 10 years," he acknowledges. "So it feels good to have people callin' askin' me to come do gigs with 'em, askin' what's up with the band. Lawyers and managers and labels ... it's been nice."

The son of a nurse and a produce salesman, Stinson grew up in Virginia listening to the Rolling Stones, outlaw country (Willie & Waylon, Hank Jr.), and loads of Grateful Dead. He eventually paid the bills drumming in a "hippie band" that played music by the Dead and related artists, up to 200 nights a year. He moved here hoping for better prospects than a 100-bucks-a-night bar band.

"And lo and behold," he laughs, "I have barely made 100 bucks a night in any gigs I've done since I was here."

Through Parsons he discovered George Jones, Johnny Cash, Ray Price and Webb Pierce, whose songs now form his primary inspirational template. "I'm still tryin' to write one that's up to snuff with those old favorites," he says.

"I'm not into songs about cell phones or computers or refrigerators and modern things. I like songs, lyrics to just have elegance and romance and sound like they could've been written 100 years ago. That's my favorite kind of song. And thematically, love and loss is, in a nutshell, what most of my songs are about. Mostly loss [laughs] but some of them are about love. Like Townes Van Zandt said, it's either the blues or zippity doodah, and I just can't write zippity doodah."

Hallelujah. Yet he makes heartbreak sound so ... desirable. Stinson's audiences show up to dance, laugh, cheer, hug friends and vent frustration; any tears get shed into the proverbial beer(s). Evocative songs like "Late Great Golden State" and especially "When My Angel Gets High" are received like anthems; you almost expect to see lit Bics held aloft. And it's easy to imagine Willie Nelson singing "I Just Don't Think So"; the phrasing's similar in Stinson's vulnerable-sounding vocal, which bears equal hints of Parsons, Arlo Guthrie and Neil Young.

Singer-songwriter Johnny Irion, who, along with wife Sarah Lee Guthrie, played with Stinson in Second Fiddles (aka Cross Country), recalls sitting around singing Stinson's songs: "He would sing the low [harmony] and I would sing the high, very Louvin Brothers/Carter Family style. They're just fun songs to sing. There's something about a great song, but there's also something about having fun doin' it."

Gilkyson's drawn by Stinson's songwriting and shared influences: "If I tell him, 'Hey, you remember what Levon Helm [drummer for The Band] did on this song,' he'll understand immediately. Or if I say, 'You remember this guitar lick on [Bob Dylan's] 'Nashville Skyline.'... Things kind of go in and out of musical fashion, and so some people will kind of like [country] one month and next month not particularly dig it. With Michael it's the real deal."

Stinson's live sets are shaped by a drummer's vigor with nary a letup in the music, save for well-placed pauses to catch breath and a beer. (Or two.) The last time he and his band played Toppers in Eagle Rock (where they return Oct. 11 with Mule), they transformed the bar into a late-night honky-tonk rowdy with drinkers and dancers. Punker Lee Ving's "King of the 12-Ounce Bottle" and rollicking originals like "Take Out the Trash" were offset by bittersweet covers of the Delbert McClinton/Doodle Owens roadhouse pity-party "Birmingham Tonight" and some terrific songs by Andy Jones, Stinson's former partner in High Horses, now sadly exited from the scene. Stinson & Co. closed with an ass-whomping stomp through Chuck Berry's (by way of The Band) "Back to Memphis," a signature finale that leaves audiences panting for more.

Stinson has enough songs for a second, more rocking album, which he's "itchin' to start."

"I'm a damn good drummer, I really am, and I tried and tried and tried to make it as a drummer, and I just never did. But I think there was a reason for that, and I'm doin' what I'm supposed to be doin' now."



::: from Miles of Music :: July 2002 :::

Jack of All Heartache is an incredible debut record by Mike Stinson. He calls Los Angeles home, but the essence of this record highlights his pure country upbringing in Virginia.

He's assembled an incredible cast of characters in pulling off this heartfelt effort: Tony Gilykson (X, Lone Justice), Don Heffington (Lone Justice/Bob Dylan/Lucinda Williams), Randy Weeks and Ramsay Midwood. It also doesn't hurt that Charlie McGovern (Victoria Williams) eagerly jumped aboard not only to produce the record, but also lend a hand with a bass tone or two.

Each spin of this record draws you deeper into Mike's torid stories of Love and Heartache. Something he proudly wears on his shirt sleeve.

If we were bettin' folk, we'd say this record will rank high in your "best of" for 2002 (!)



::: Scott Sterling, The Fold:: July 2002 :::

Mike Stinson has assembled a band with more than enough heel to pull off heartfelt, by degrees severe renditions of original songs from one of Southern California's newest and best composers of traditional country rock.

Stinson has a steadiness, assured presence, and voice that would be as compelling at a Memphis truck stop bar as it would be on Austin City Limits. The song "L.A. County Sheriff" sounds like a classic already.

No bull.



::: from The Santa Monica Mirror :: July 15, 2002 :: by Tony Peyser :::

The jukebox in my subconscious switched on the other night and this is what I heard: "In the late great golden state / A nice place for a clean slate / But leave your expectations at the gate / It's the late great golden state".

I figured it had to be off of Neil Young's latest album, but I looked and couldn't find it listed there. Was it a hidden track? Nah, it was just the third song on Mike Stinson's debut CD, Jack Of All Heartache.

The boy's got some strong songs here like the honky tonk title track, the wistful "I Can't Call Virginia" and "When My Angel Gets High," which would have fit in nicely on an album by the Flying Burrito Brothers. Stinson's Jack Of All Heartache is as easy to like as pizza and beer.