Folks:

"Genre" basically means what box they gonna put you in in the record store. Most folks want to be in the "country" box because it's the biggest, even if nobody can exactly say any more what "country" is. If you're young, pretty, and comfortable taking off your clothes in front of lots of people, "pop" may be an option. (Sorry.) The other boxes are better-defined, but kinda small--they don't get as many customers.

When I played with the Dodson Drifters, we called our style "bluegrass punk." We felt we had to call it something, and also felt that being able to be pigeonholed (even if no one was exactly sure what either the pigeon or the hole exactly looked like) helped us get gigs. We probably would've ended up in the "country" bin at the record store no matter what we called ourselves--but one of our two "hits" that got airplay was picked up by a *jazz* program, not country. Go figure.

Being "country" these days is kind of like being a "Democrat"--so all-inclusive it's meaningless. I, too, call what I do "country music"; if people want to know what I mean, they're going to have to listen. Then they can call me whatever they want, as long as they call me for gigs.

Joe

www.soundclick.com/joewrabek
www.soundclick.com/deathgrass
www.soundclick.com/wrabeksworksinprogress
The Writer's Blog: http://nakedspacehamsters.blogspot.com