“Austin Music Minute” and “Song of The Day” features streaming
now via NPR-affiliate KUTX, Austin. “Hey
Pretty Mamma” single premieres via CMT Edge.
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Starlings,
TN (L-R): Bryan Robison, Steve Stubblefield, Tim Bryan, Mitchell Vandenburg.
Photo Credit: Ricardo Acevedo.
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PLAY, POST
& SHARE
“Hey Pretty Mamma” is the latest single
from the new album All The Good Times
by Starlings, TN
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“On a
mission to inject Spiritualized’s space rock into traditional bluegrass.” – Austin
Chronicle
“Punk and
bluegrass come from the heart, and they come from the gut. Enter Starlings, TN.”
– KUTX, Austin
“It’s the
roiling sound of piss and venom that makes All The Good Times so memorable.” – BLURT
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Listen
to KUTX, Austin’s “Austin Music Minute” feature
on Starlings, TN and check out
“Hey Pretty Mamma” as the KUTX “Song of The Day.” See
the “Hey Pretty Mamma” premiere
at CMT Edge
“I haven’t collaborated since high school, but the
desire to be better has pushed me to,” says Steve Stubblefield, leader of Austin-based band Starlings, TN (pronounced Starlings,
Tennessee) which recently released its critically acclaimed seventh album All The Good Times via Chicken Ranch Records. It’s been a long time since those days for Stubblefield, who emerged from a punk
rock background to found the group in
2001 with current band member Tim Bryan,
and the late David Schnaufer, famed
dulcimer player and instructor (Cyndi
Lauper was a student), who was widely credited with restoring the cultural
popularity of the instrument. An
exhibition of Snauffer’s
collection of dulcimers at the Tennessee
State Museum is the subject of a Nashville
Public Radio piece here.
The current incarnation of Starlings, TN is considered by all involved to be its most artistically
collaborative and upbeat to date, and these good feelings are evident in the
grooves of All The Good Times. Stubblefield
remembers, “The Oklahoma City Gazette
called our album How Dark It Is Before The Dawn one of the most depressing
records ever to be released. With All
The Good Times, however, we’re different, the tone is different, and so
is the expectation. When the four of us
are together, recording, performing or, in this case, making a video, we have
fun doing it.”
The first single and video from All The Good Times is “Burnt Ends,” which for any Texan,
doesn’t really need much explanation. “It’s
what I like most about Texas barbeque!” says Stubblefield, voicing exactly what we’re already thinking. Much attention is being paid to the barbecue
scene across the country lately (to wit, CBS
This Morning aired this piece about
Texas barbecue joints on the same weekend that “Burnt Ends” was shot.) And
while Stubblefield was simply
writing from his heart (and stomach), he has none-the-less captured a zeitgeist
with a barbecue theme song for customers to sing while waiting on those long
lines for a taste.
The music video for “Burnt Ends” sees the band going on a “barbeque bender” on East 11th
Street in Austin near the historic barbecue meccas Victory Grill and Franklin Barbecue. “We also shot at Micklethwait Craft Meats,” says Starlings, TN label head Mike
Dickinson of Chicken Ranch Records.
“The restaurant regularly sells out of food early in the day, which allowed us
to set up right in front of Micklethwait’s
food trailer.”
Regarding “Hey
Pretty Mamma,” the latest single from All The Good Times, Stubblefield explains, “At times, music
and lyrics seem to just fall from the sky like a Louisiana summer thunderstorm
and at other times I’m as dry as a Texas summer.” When he began writing the album, Stubblefield was single, but during the
process he rekindled a relationship from his youth. As the time was drawing near to start
recording, he felt one of the songs wasn’t right, “So my gal coyly suggested
that I write one about her,” he says. “But, I told her, ‘Babe, you don’t want
me to write a song about you because that will mean that our relationship has
ended. I can’t write a happy love song.’”
She asked Stubblefield
to try anyway, and so, reaching for the dulcimer banjo hybrid, he sat down with
a couple of drinks to tell the story exactly how it is. “From beginning to end,
‘Hey Pretty Mamma’ is exactly how we
are on any given night,” Stubblefield
explains. “We make drinks, we dance, and we sometimes stay up all night.”
All The Good Times by Starlings,
TN is out now via Chicken Ranch
Records. Steve Stubblefield is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom
at Fanatic for more information.
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Starlings, TN
All
The Good Times
(Chicken Ranch – Out Now)
Track Listing:
01. Goodtime Gal
02. Oh! Whiskey
03. Back To Magnolia
05. Blue Moon of Kentucky
06. All The Good Times Are Now
07. The Thompson Boys
09. The Other Guy
10. Shake Rattle and Roll
11. Hey Little Birdie
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Starlings, TN Links
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Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion
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