THE EDITED BIO & PRESS RELEASE: “If it sounds country, thats what it is, It’s a country song.”
It’s what Kris Kristofferson said, back when country music — like all music — hadn’t yet been taken over by consumerism and capitalist logic. When punk was still alive. When there was still some sort of class consciousness — the kind that has long been buried by the onslaught of oppression dividing and conquering people along cultural and racial lines, hiding the fact that the shitline runs between those below and those above, the haves and the have-nots. And when there were still wide efforts to unite students, unions and the marginalised. When classism, racism and sexism were perceived as intersected.
Was there ever a time like that? It might as well be now, as the foundations of oppression have never changed. Not in a long, long time. They just might be hard to spot as there is too much distraction on your phone and too much worry in your daily life. To unravel and show the structures is one thing Rodeo FM are after. To broadcast what’s wrong and how it plays out in the large and the tiny context, in love, over time and within the struggle. How the devil pays the bills and how the carpet keeps growing underneath which the bad shit goes. As such, Rodeo FM have been playing relentlessly since 2004, making music that is compared to Tom Petty and the Stones, Gram Parsons and Howe Gelb. They have played art and country fairs, demonstrations and symposiums, jazz and beer festivals, weddings and funerals, punk cellars and linedance clubs. Blending their own Americana by moving effortlessly between country, folk, blues, jazz and garage rock. Moving towards the emancipatory. relishing the subversive. And always, always pulling people onto the dancefloor.
Upgrade of Truth, the third self-published album by the Berlin-based Americana band. A smooth and pristine Americana ride. A serene journey to the heart of darkness. A collection of angry and charging accusations of the powers that be. Stonesy pieces on how to do right when love went wrong. Swampy country-blues outcries and swing-induced laments. Music for the lonely, dispossessed, heartbroken and poor. Music to upgrade the truth.”
