We’re an online magazine dedicated to covering the music we love. Call it what you wish—twang, roots, alt-country, Americana, bluegrass, newgrass, whatever-grass. Toss in Western swing, rockabilly, honky-tonk and some contemporary jab-in-the-eye protest tunes.

You’ll find enthusiastic writing on the subject at cornsqueezins.com. We’ll cover anything from smoky dive bar electric to hillbilly front porch acoustic.

Here is our inspiration. We love heartfelt music—the music made by musicians who may or may not have pretty faces or be able to shake their butts, the music with soul, the music inspired by emotions whether skipping-in-the-meadow euphoria or drunken despair.

At the same time, we are bored to death with Nashville pop, new or classic Top 40 rock and incredibly lame, juvenile morning talk radio. We resent all the has-been performers who are now adding banjos or mandolins to their mix trying to save their careers.

Oh, yeah, despite our name, we probably won’t be selling any moonshine.

Let me throw out the names of some of the artists we’ll cover: Paul Thorn, Tim O’Brien, Terri Hendrix, the Austin Lounge Lizards, Ray Wilie Hubbard and James McMurtry. We’ll feature our own superstars like Tom Waits, Guy Clark, Dan Hicks, David Grisman and John Prine.

We also hope to acquaint you with some of the great young musicians—or undiscovered older musicians—who are out there on a nightly basis in the back road clubs playing the music they believe in.

Ideas for our magazine are still flying about. Here are some early thoughts. We’re planning to interview any twang artist we can get close to. For well-known performers, that will come down to those with lousy security or those whose managers accept pitifully small bribes.

We won’t ask about love lives or show pictures of their pimped-out cribs. (Unless their love lives are really sleazy and involve the back seat of a Caddy.)

We want to know about the music. Why do they play it? Where do they get their inspiration? What is their history? From an instrumental or songwriting standpoint, maybe they’ll teach us some tricks.

We plan to have a regular column about what is coming out on CD, what has been released and what is good. A little nonpartisan guidance might be appreciated.

Finally, we’ve noticed a strong correlation between writers and musicians. We both seem to be in dead-end careers, have delusions of grandeur, and do what we do because we love it. With that in mind, cornsqueezins.com will publish regular stories written by musicians about their gig experiences. The stories might be true, but probably aren’t. Hopefully, we’ll read some scandalous, bald-faced lies. We shall see.

Surprise, surprise. We need to pay for cornsqueezins.com. Eventually we’d like to sell you stuff—a tee shirt, maybe, or in the future, some CDs. At least you’ll have to eyeball some advertising. We do promise that we’ll make it as unobtrusive as possible—no popups, no subscriptions or log-ins, no selling of your e-mail address to anyone.

Suggestions or comments? Contact us. We’ll be listening.

Henry Barrows, Editor
cornsqueezins.com