okay okay…Introducing is a stretch…most of you have, or should have, heard of them or at the very least you have heard them and did not know it. I had been meaning to write something about these guys but the newness of the blog and trying to ration all the info i want to put on here they kept slipping through the cracks…for an entire week or so…oh my. Well, the article in the newest No Depression reminded me that i need to do this. So, here we are…fashionably late to the party but here none the less. O.C.M.S. may be from New York but they ain’t no gimmick band. They got the front porch sippin’ whiskey feel down cold and it comes by them honest…through miles…miles and sweat and stuggle..they aren’t a Johnny come lately form a group, record a demo get a deal group of kids…they are a form a group, hit the bars, learn to play your instrument and struggle with a damn it all determination in a van somewhere in Canada. It is that very struggle that gives them a connection with the fans that just do not see outside of other road warriors, i.e. DBT, Lucero, LSS. Their 2004 album O.C.M.S. was selected by CMT as one of the top-10 bluegrass albums of the year but don’t get caught up in calling them Bluegrass…I think a quote by Eddie Stubbs (legendary DJ, one of the voices of the Opry) says it best, “They have a respect for what’s come before them, and they’ve added their own twist. I know of no other group who’s made the sound of roots music so cool to young people.”….a cool band, playing cool music, making it cool, keeping it cool, for the cool (a description that makes me think of the Beat poets). While you can not, or should not, call it Bluegrass there is no denying the Bluegrass element in their music it is more a rhythmic bluegrass sound with pop structures a punk-rock grittiness with a jazzy-fat-nasty swing to it. So, if you have a taste for alt.country acts such as Lucero & The Avette Brothers or the O’Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack made you want to investigate the Appalachian/Bluegrass sound spectrum a little more check out this sextet from Ithaca, New York.

Wagon Wheel
Minglewood Blues
Tell It Me
Down Home Girl

O.C.M.S.’s latest cd “Big Iron World” was released on August 29th and they are currently on tour…a tour that does not currently contain any Florida dates mind you. >:-(

There is also a really nice interview available for streaming over at All Things Considered (NPR).