The Futurebirds are an unruly band of boys from Athens, Georgia, but they might as well have been reared in the backwoods of Woodstock by Levon Helm himself. Their debut release, Hampton’s Lullaby, is out on July 13 via Autumn Tone Records.

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We checked in with the exciting new illustrator James Blagden last week and followed up with him to find out what music he works to. Given the day-glo intensity of his creations, it would have to be electro remixes, right? Or deep and dishy acid rock? Nope. ‘There Stands the Glass, Wondering, More and More, and I’ll Get By Somehow, all by country legend Webb Pierce’. Huh.

We said a few weeks back that Micah P. Hinson is ‘like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre’. With that in mind, we spoke to him recently and asked him whether his hometown of Texas was a difficult place for a young, aspiring musician to grow up in: ‘The boredom of Abilene [Texas] helped the creativity. There wasn’t much to do to fill a person’s time, so you had to find ways of filling it. So as far as music, this was helpful. But regarding other extralegal activities, it was not so helpful. But you know, you take the good with the bad, mix it up, and see what pops out’.

How did your experiences there shape your songwriting and would you have been as successful a songwriter, do you think, if you hadn’t gone through the dramas of your late teen years?
‘I’m not sure how to really answer this one. It goes back to the question of whether hard times are important to songwriting. I firmly believe that it is not necessary to the process. Yeah, it helps, but surely if I hadn’t caused all that hell, music still would have come. It just would’ve come from a different angle’.

Any music right now that’s really exciting you – bands, producers or songwriters?
‘Hmmm, the only thing new that I’m excited about is the Glasgow band, The Twilight Sad. Other than that, I’m at a loss’.

How quick/slow was the writing process for [new album] Micah P. Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra?
‘The songwriting process took about the same as it always does. It usually takes about the span of a year to write, record, and then prepare for a release. It’d probably take a shorter amount of time, but between albums they keep me so busy with the road that I can’t focus on much anything else’.

Are you still enjoying listening to it or have you moved on from it already?
‘I listen to my albums every so often. I listen to them so much during the recording process, that by the end, my ears generally tire of them. It’s good this way, though, ’cause it always sounds like magic to go back to’.

Download the Micah P. Hinson track, Tell Me It Isn’t So.

Micah P. Hinson’s …And The Red Empire Orchestra is out now on Pod through Inertia.

Micah P. Hinson is like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre. This track, Diggin’ A Grave, is a button-up hoe down with a classic pop chorus and a jangly banjo accompaniment. Yup, some folk have all the fun.

If you ever happen to find yourself riding across the mid-west on horseback with an iPod jangling about in your holster, be sure to let Calexico soundtrack the experience. They’re cleverly fusing a range of genres, mixing some good old country with US indie, a bit of jazz and even, in 2003’s Feast of Wire, some smatterings of electronica. Lead singer Joey Burns gives a healthy amount of cowboy twang and the soaring orchestral background and sweet country guitar licks add a real atmosphere to the music.

Listen to the Calexico song, Convict Pool.

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We name-checked them as having one of the top five albums of 2007, and with good reason. I speak of Nashville band, The Silver Seas. We caught up with guitarist and vocalist Daniel Tashian. Your music’s like a chronology of the last 60 years of music, taking in old rock n roll, with some 60’s/70’s folk and right through to 2008’s brand of catchy, feel-good indie-rock. A band of all ages then? ‘I don’t know. I feel it’s a strength and also a weakness. Like, not many people can put on their record, and someone will say: “That sounds like the Lovin Spoonful!”, because that’s a very hard thing to do, but then again, nobody really cares how hard something is, really, so, you have to ultimately go with what feels and sings good. Some songs want more modern lyrics, others seem to beg for cliches’. Hailing from Nashville, you’re clearly well pitched to capture middle America in an album. Do you draw heavily on the sights and sounds around you? ‘Well. I suppose it’s impossible not to. But as a kid, I was surrounded by country music, and I thought it wasn’t cool, so I kept the psychedelic furs on in my walkman all the time, sort of like a buffer against all the steel guitars, you know, but now, I have grown to love it, and so maybe if there’s a bit of country in the music, I don’t mind so much’. There seems to be a theme of escapism running through a lot of your lyrics – quite common for bands hailing from your area. Why the need to leave? ‘I don’t know. Maybe when you’re writing a song, you need to have somewhere to go, other than: “Here we are, isn’t this great?” That song would get boring in 2 seconds, and trust me, I have a song like that. No, I think the idea of a song is: “Wouldn’t it be nice!”, you know, like you’re sort of after something, yearning a bit, you know?’

Growing up on the road in the deep south of America will either maim you or make you stronger. In Ryan Bingham’s case, it was the latter. On his debut album, Mescalito, Bingham’s childhood memories of shuffling from roadhouse to roadhouse prove to be excellent song material and is built upon with strong bass lines, harmonica, bluesy slide guitar riffs and a deep Southern drawl that’s seen and done it all. [hear also the music of The Silver Seas]