Winter Shutdown

Starting today We Own This Town will be going into hibernation mode until sometime in early 2012. Really this just means that I won’t be writing up any poorly worded record reviews but will continue to post interesting items from Twitter and keep the event calendar somewhat up to date (as best I can). If I run across some interesting videos, I’ll be sure to add them to the repository.

Thanks to everyone that continues to read this site and, hopefully, I can find a way to make it even better in 2012. Have a great remainder of 2011!

Grooveshark: The Nashville Sessions

Thanks to a handy heads up from Turbo Fruits I’ve been cruising this set of videos from Grooveshark entitled The Nashville Sessions. You can watch them on vimeo, in the player above or in our huge player. Your choice!

There are also sessions from Ben Sollee and Justin Townes Earle if that’s your thing!

Volume 50 (Best of 2011)

One thing is for sure, Nashville has absolutely no shortage of great musical offerings well outside the Music Row realm. Granted, ole WOTT didn’t have quite as many actual podcasts as there were months in the year but I’d like to say we covered a good deal of the highlights from the last twelve months. But how do you boil down an entire year of releases into one comprehensive package? Unfortunately, you can’t.

The likes of The Ettes, Sugar Sk*_*lls, Kyle Andrews, Heypenny, By Lightning, Southern and many others all had superbly quality releases this year that everyone should spend time with. They are not, however, included in this mix. Being entirely comprehensive just isn’t possible. Their exclusion is not derived from a lack of enjoyment.

Other bands exist outside the scope of what We Own This Town is trying to expose. While I love The Black Keys as much as the next person, they don’t exactly need our help getting their name out there. Or someone like Jonny Corndawg, who put out a phenomenal record with Down on the Bikini Line, doesn’t actually live here anymore; so is ineligible.

Long story short, I hate that I was unable to include everything great from the last year. I am endlessly proud of the diversity of music that Nashville creates and wish there was a way for everyone to hear everything great; its just not practical. Despite that, I’ve compiled an hour and half of some of the most enjoyable tunes, to me, officially released in 2011 in these United States. Please enjoy.

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Tristen
Deck The Halls
Free Download

Remember that Tristen Holiday 7″ Kickstarter that reached its goal in no time flat? Well, if you missed out on the pre-order you can still go order the vinyl or just grab the mp3’s for free in exchange for an email. A helluva deal!