It’s midnight in Groningen. It’s the end of an abnormally warm November saturday and it should also have been the end of an eight hour marathon of roots and americana across six rooms in the De Oosterpoort complex. But Garrett T. Capps and his NASA Country have different ideas. Suddenly, a “curfew” seems like a malleable concept as fellow Texans Robert Ellis and James Steinle join the band on stage for a sprawling and ecstatic “Born in San Antone” and a version of the classic “She’s About a Mover”, penned by San Antonio’s very own Doug Sahm. Capps seems comfortable as the frontman to a 21st century version of the mighty Texas Tornados, powered by a strong rhythm section and an unusual synth that takes his brand of Americana to another dimension. I’ve been calling it krautcountry after seeing them in Paradiso’s small room in the same evening as Faust and Camera, and you should too.
The Grote Zaal of De Oosterpoort during the 2018′s TakeRoot festival.
TakeRoot Festival. Saturday, 2 November 2019, at De Oosterpoort, Groningen, The Netherlands. Tickets for sale here.
Coming of age in the era of MySpace meant stumbling into a lot of “A little bit of everything, except country and rap” on your fellow scenester’s profiles. Fast forward some 15 years, and there’s a rapper headlining your favorite indie festival, much to the disgust of a few folks who haven’t grown from their proud everything-except-country-and-rap pedestal. But most young alternative Europeans still look at country music with the same disgusted look that your aunt made the first time she stumbled upon a 50 Cent music video.
This is our 200th playlist since we started back in January 16, 2015. 3603 tracks, 244 hours of music, way more than those 244 hours spent reading, keeping track and listening to the hundreds of artists featured in our playlist so far. Sounds like we’re going to ask you for money, right? Of course not. We’re only going to ask you to tell a friend or two about our playlists. We do this mostly to keep ourselves updated on what’s new and avoid falling into the “music these days just isn’t as good as it was back in the day” trap (which roughly translates to “I got older and gave up my interests”). But the best part about it is knowing someone out there actually listens and values what we do. We know algorithms are pretty cool, but nothing beats a playlist that was handpicked by a group of dedicated people.
