Well, I can’t believe it. No wait. I can. There’s a little Seagull Pewter trophy shaped like a treble clef sitting on my mantlepeice.

The Divorcees, recently back from The East Coast Music Awards, have won an award for Country Album Of The Year 2010 for our latest release, “Last Of The Free Men”.

It’s wonderful to receive one of these awards, due in large part to the fact that many East Coast Music Association delegates are our peers.

The ECMA’s are a celebration of East Coast talent - from the very celtic to the very loud and everything in between. Imagine all your musical brothers and sisters congregating in the party capital of the Maritimes - Sydney Nova Scotia - and you can readily picture just how big a celebration the ECMA’s are. It’s a fantastic event, both for fans of East Coast music and for the people in the business as well.

Moncton was in luck this year, with bands like The Motorleague winning two awards and our good fiddlin’ friend Sam Robichaud winning one as well. Also, many of our friends - like In Flight Safety and Joel Plaskett, for example - took multiple awards. We couldn’t be happier about that.

We were in the running with folks we respect a great deal - hard-working guys like JD Clarke, Rik Reese and Neon Highway, Melanie Morgan and George Canyon. It’s one thing to be in the running with the elite of the elite. It’s another thing altogether to be nominated alongside musicians that easily work and tour as hard as you, if not harder. So we are truly grateful and very appreciative of both the nomination and the award.

Also, to be handed your award with a generous hug from our good friend Gordie Johnson is almost as thrilling as winning the award itself.

Now that my head is somewhat clearer from four straight days of revelry, we wanted to thank a whole wack of people for helping us win Country Album Of The Year. They are:
Shelly Nordstrom (who arranges bringing in Export delegates to the ECMA’s)
Serge Samson (our rep at Hay Sale Records)
Josh Finlayson (our producer)
Terry Sawchuk (not the hockey player, heh - the fella who mixed our album)
Aaron Holmberg (a great, great engineer)
Nathan Jones and The Postman Studios
Chris Smith (album design and photography)
XL96 and Choix 99.9 (two great Moncton Country stations)
Tracy Petukhov (owner of Plan B and The Divorcees ‘Mom’)
Murielle Savoie (from NB’s MID funding program)
FACTOR
Samantha Robichaud
Gordie Johnson
Tim Hardy (our trusty east coaster with SOCAN)
SSI Audio
Robbie (our favorite soundman)
all the hard working guys at Moncton’s Long and McQuade
The CBC (including their “Heartland” tv show)
The Atlantic Film Festival
Troy Greencorn and the fine folks at Stan Fest
Will Foster and Peavey Electronics
Bruce Morel (who’s been in our corner more than once)
Jean Surrette and the staff of Music New Brunswick
Ray Legere (for the great fiddles and mandolin on the album)
Coco McGraw (a great pedal steel player)
Angela Desvaux (who sang beautifully on “After The Storm”)
Ooooole Doolang (aka Duane Kelly - for great preproduction)
our loving, patient partners - Lisa Roy, Jocelyne Vautour, and Melanie Cassidy
our families for helping in any way they could
our many many friends
many, many bands we call friends
The Grass Mountain Hobos (for the moonshine and the Hank III rendition at the hotel)
Plan B - The Divorcees favorite watering hole
Darrin Muck at Molson
Merle Haggard
Willie, Waylon, and The Boys
John R Cash
Jack Daniels

…and a special holler goes to our wonderful fans and supporters at the Merritt Desert Inn, The Can Ho’, Saxby’s, Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club, and every great honky tonk across this great land.
Lastly, we’d like to thank…well…you! Yeah, you! For being intersted in us, for coming to our shows, for believing in us, and for keeping good ole outlaw country alive. We salute you!

Very Best,

Alex Madsen

The Divorcees

Thanks so much for all your help - Divorcees fans are the best. We couldn’t do it without you.

ECMA Fan Choice Voting Portal

All Hay Sale titles, including both Divorcees titles are now marked down to $5!!!

This offer will last for a limited time only, so head over to our online store and pick up a stocking stuffer for those little lovable haters of modern-garbage-that-passes-for-country in your life.

Pricing applies to mail-order sales of physical discs only – not downloads from online retailers.

No angry mail re punk – “I don’t wanna hear it!!! None of your Bullshit..I don’t wanna hear it! Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh SHUT UP!”

Well, it’s been an exciting couple of months here in Divorcees-land!

This week, our drummer-at-arms Brock Gallant and his lovely wife Melanie welcomed their son Everett into the world. We’re happy to say that Everett will be spoiled rotten by his crazy, no-good, outlaw uncles! And we’ve never seen Brock with bigger smile on his face. Something tells us a drumming dynasty has been born.

It’s not secret to many Divorcees fans that our not-so-secret weapon in the band is our absolutely hellacious bass player, Denis “TurTle” Arsenault. And much to our suprise and satisfaction, Canadian Musican Magazine has noticed it, too. Click on the link below and turn to page 46 for a great piece on Turt’s world-class bass playing, and enjoy!

http://www.canadianmusician.com/online/index.php

Contrary to common belief, there are actually some of us in the band that are married - one of them being Brock and now…as of this fall, our multi-instrumentist and guitar wizard Danny Roy has officially tied the knot with his long-time partner, Lisa Rotter (who, by the way, sings like a bird). We couldn’t be happier for him, and boy, you oughtta see a wedding that’s graced by The Divorcees. That’s one long, long, LONG party.

Just when you think the news couldn’t get any better, it does - in the form of two nominations for the band at the 2010 East Coast Music Awards in Sydney, NS. We’re up for both Country Album Of The Year (Last Of The Free Men), and for Entertainer Of The Year. We’re sharing the nominee list with some great artists such as George Canyon, Melanie Morgan, JD Clarke, and our buds Neon Highway. We’re thrilled to be in such great company and are looking forward to being a part of the festivities!

Stay tuned for more Divorcees goodness in the new year…and have a good one.

Giver!

P.S. Check out the new review from Italy’s rootshighway.it:

http://www.rootshighway.it/outsiders/divorcees.htm

Hi folks - just wanted to let you know that Brock, Danny and Alex are growing ’staches for prostate cancer research and awareness. Please donate to their account:
http://tiny.cc/ENbXF

Check back to their movember account and see their weekly progress. It’s worth it to see Alex’s face without a beard - he looks like Neil Young.

Well, Serge Samson (Haysale Records) and me - Alex Madsen - had made it through customs at the Toronto Airport.

We hopped on the tiny plane that was going to take us to Nashville for the 10th Annual Americana Music Awards.

Man. 10 Years.

Back when I remember the phrase being coined, all we had were a bunch of phrases to describe anything other than the nonsense that was assaulting our ears on country radio. Not gracing our dramatically compressed airwaves were folk and its derivatives, country blues, your something-a-billies, cowpunks, and roots-rockers. Invariably, there were always people that got lost in between those titles - probably because guys like me liked it all and considered Peter Paul and Mary as influential as Willie, Waylon, and Merle.

Luckily, guys like Jim Lauderdale recognized that people who liked Jason And The Scorchers tended to like Emmylou Harris and people who liked Emmylou Harris liked folks like Sam Bush. And it was no accident you’d see all of the above sharing a stage with Asleep At The Wheel.

So, Americana was born.

There’s still some confusion over the word but hey; that’s music. Seems like many reviewers and such will just climb over each other to create sub-genres. The metal genre in all its multifaceted glory is a great example. So, in a world of Post-this, neo-that, and nu-then-some, a nice organic-sounding umbrella never hurt anybody.

I for one, enjoy the name, the title, the feel of the word “Americana” which some may find odd as I am a Canadian - moreso, a Maritimer hailing from New Brunswick, a tiny province sharing the same border - and fondness for checkered wool shirts - as Maine.

I find the word “Americana” to be inclusive, as an invitation.

Almost as soon as we were off and running thru the surprisingly rainy, tropical heat of Nashville, we sweltering Canucks instantaneously forgot the first frosts of home and headed down to the convention centre to get our passes and make some new friends. It didn’t take long for either to happen.

Now, I could go into great detail as to the foolishness that Serge and I embarked upon while here (and there were more than a few moments), but instead I’ll summarize from a Canadian’s perspective what made this year’s AMA Conference and our trip to Nashville a doozy.

To start off, I just want to say that Barbeque, we salute you. We Maritimers are lucky to have seafood and we know it. Where we’re from, lobster grows on trees and good mussels (clams) are in ready and delicious supply. But I have gratefully and humbly accepted - with much pleasure - that our neighbors here have mastered the fine art of making meat into a veritable bouquet of smoky, slathered mesquite goodness. With a side of beans and cream-style corn.

Ok. Where was I.

The organizers of the event deserve special thanks. Although there are many to thank, in this way, I have absolutely no choice but to border on cliche and be grateful - truly grateful - that our American friends would take such great pains to make their newfound friends in Canada feel right at home.

For example.

I had lost my ticket to the awards show at the Ryman Auditorium (the original Grand Ole Opry) due to my bag disappearing during a very crowded show the previous night. The people at the AMA registration booths were able to still get me into the show and were happy to - even though they were dealing with people I would personally consider far more important than me who wanted a whole heckuva lot more.

The Ryman blew my mind; I stood two feet in front Hank Williams Suit which stood next to Little Jimmy Dickens’ diminuitive outfit. I was dazzled by Nudie’s Wagonmaster wizardry and mesmerized, as the night went on, by performances by Sam Bush, Buddy Miller, Justin Townes Earle, and John Prine, amongst others. It was a joy to sit in my pew, watching legends perform in an equally legendary venue. To be enveloped by musical history while it was unfolding is an experience I won’t soon forget.

I feel lucky.

Serge and I also had the pleasure of meeting a lot of new friends while here - notably Baron from twangnation.com - a swell guy who I shared quite a few laughs with during the trip. He was a go-to for places to hit and people to see and hear - both at the conference and, from here on in, from his very informative website. For me, I would have to say that seeing The Bottlerockets in a well-known, well-respected independent club called The Basement was a home run right out of the park. Baron, you were right as rain (pardon the pun) about those guys.

We met many great radio hosts who made us feel that even though we may wading in a sea of cookie-cut, frost-tipped glitter, the roots are still showing if you turn the dial or virtual dial far enough. A tip of the hat - and a place for you to tune into - goes to Cuzin’ Dave Wilson from WRUV FM 91.1 in Cleveland Ohio and Fred Boenig at WXLV 90.3 FM in Schnecksville PA. Good radio is still out there, people.

P.S - if you’re ever in my neck of the woods, check out Choix 99.9 Acadie Country.

The conferences were, in my opinion, reasonably tailored for what Americana bookers, musicians, and supporters were looking for. Some I found noteworthy would be the talk on house shows (which I feel will grow exponentially over the next few years), the songwriter sessions, and the “That’s Canadiana” panel featuring Six Shooter Records, Luke Doucet, Oh Susannah, and my bud Corb Lund.

Broadway’s a sight to behold here in Nashville and warrants a review of its own so allow me to summarize. Tootsies, Layla’s, Jack’s - they’re all right there. They’re busy as hell night and day - - as are the musicians there who play there. Yeah, it’s a tourist trap. But it’s a damned good one to get stuck in. I recommend any small town hot-shots to visit these bars at least once in their career. But be prepared; you will be humbled because everywhere you go, you will hear players much, much better than you who are playing for tips.

A special kudos goes to the band “Jipsy” who played at Layla’s; the kind of musicianship that comes from brothers and sisters whose dolls and soldiers were fiddles and flattops. To watch the ease and beauty of their musicianship was awe-inspiring. To watch them pass the jar around the bar was, for me, humbling.

All in all, The AMA Conference was a pleasure - the kind you share in the rare moments that you are completely surrounded by kindred spirits. It’s bittersweet to head home from such comraderie.

So tomorrow, it’s back to the Maritimes and to full fall colors, temperatures below zero celcius, and the welcoming warmth of a double double Tim Horton’s.

I’ll be happy to be home, but I will leave here with some great memories of new friends made and the deep satisfaction of knowing the Americana movement grows ever deeper, ever further out…even to the Maritimes of Canada.

fin.

The Divorcees
Last Of The Free Men (Hay Sale)
By Benjamin Boles

While alt-country’s raw production and classic warm sounds are more appealing than the shiny gloss of new country, there’s often an unfortunate lack of authenticity and tendency to indulge in irony instead of honesty.

Thankfully, this isn’t a problem for Moncton twang terrors the Divorcees. When they sing a tribute to an aging pickup truck, you don’t get the sense that they’re mocking the rural working class, which makes the occasional goofy cliché much easier to digest.

Last Of The Free Men is a rollicking upbeat collection of down-home country rockers, and it’s got the kind of sound that translates well live, especially in an appropriately whisky-soaked dive bar. They could use a bit more subtlety and dynamics, but it’s a satisfying listen nevertheless.

Top track: My ’83

The Divorcees get their twang on July 16 at the Dakota.
NOW | July 8-15, 2009 | VOL 28 NO 45
Copyright 2009 NOW Communications