It’s a holiday weekend. The weather is perfect. The grill is ready to light and your friends are on their way over, but you were too busy and/or lazy to make a playlist for the occasion. So, who is your go-to band? Who can you count on to set the right mood, so you don’t have to keep running over from the grill to skip all the embarrassing songs that come on when your iPod is set to random? For me, there’s an easy answer: Old Crow Medicine Show. How I started listening to Old Crow stands in perfect contrast to yesterday’s post about Delicate Steve. There are no press releases here, no lessons about public relations or authenticity, just a simple story about hearing a band for the first time and instantly connecting. At Bonnaroo in 2005, I happened to wander over to the tent where Old Crow was playing. To this day, I can remember so distinctly the feeling that their songs felt like old friends I just hadn’t met yet. Their performance was raucous (I swear their shows have gotten even crazier – last time I saw them at the National, people were crowdsurfing … to bluegrass), but their blend of roots music and Americana carried a soulful undercurrent that resonated deeply, and still does today. As a tribute to all the cookouts that will be happening this weekend, check out their song “Humdinger,” which chronicles a nice little get-together.

Just kidding it’s about an out-of-control, 700-person celebration of “wine, whiskey, women and guns.”