News Round Up: Kanye and Swift Give MTV Some Press

• Scottish-Canadian country singer Johnny Reid was in the running for six awards, including Album of the Year for his latest release Dance With Me.The singer took home five trophies including Album, Songwriter, Video and Male Artist of the Year from the Canadian Country Music Awards. Dean Brody won Single of the Year for Brothers, Crystal Shawanda won Female Artist of the Year and Corb Lund won Roots Artist or Group of the Year

• Son Volt’s Jay Farrar & Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard are set to perform four special concerts to support their collaberation on the album One Fast Move Or I’m Gone: Kerouac’s Big Sur.  Other surprise material will be performed at four concerts in October, underscoring the influential author’s enduring legacy 40 years after his death on October 21, 1969. The band features Jay Farrar (Son Volt), Benjamin Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie, Postal Service), Nick Harmer (Death Cab for Cutie), Mark Spencer (Son Volt) and Jon Wurster (Superchunk, Bob Mould, The Mountain Goats).

Tour dates:
10/23 – El Rey Theatre – Los Angeles, CA (on sale 9/16)
10/24 – Bimbo’s 365 Club – San Francisco, CA (on sale 9/16)
10/26 – Lincoln Hall – Chicago, IL (on sale 9/25)
10/28 – Webster Hall – New York, NY (on sale 9/1Cool

• Billboard.com has a nice feature on the Avett Brothers and their upcoming major label debut I and Love and You.

• After fuming with the multitudes on twitter about the whole Kanye West / Taylor Swift Female Video of the Year diss dust-up at the MTV Awards, I’m convinced the whole thing was staged for media controversy. Kanye seems to be willing to do this every time he needs ink. He shot his mouth off at the the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards in Denmark, when Touch The Sky lost out to Justice Vs Simian’s We Are Your Friends, Swift  has a repackaged Fearless coming out soon and more press couldn’t hurt, and MTV  gets press (and tweets) from any controversy. Remember the infamous 2003 Madonna/Britney Spears kiss?

• Happy birthday to Bill Monroe is (98)!
  

• Starting tomorrow I will be posting intermittently from the Americana Music Association conference and festival in Nashville. For more constant (and dubiously sober) posts check out my twitter profile.