rock star painters

someone's youtube rendition of red house painters' "have you forgotten".  the video's interesting but the song is good quality, which is why i'm posting it.  
Anyway, I was eating Wendy's in my car today while listening to this song, and I wondered why the heck they were called Red House Painters.  I figured it's because some musicians consider themselves musical artists, and if so, these guys would be red house painters....  meaning cheap ass house painters.  listening to this song, i'm pretty sure i'd hire these guys to paint my house.  they seem like good old american folks.

A side thought I had was, which americana artist would i feel most confident in their handiwork skills.  personally, i'd go with my man will oldham, as pictured.  he just looks like he came out of the ground, so he'll have no problem getting down and dirty in any household problem.  he'd have a ball cleaning the pool and fixing mili, our automatic pool cleaner that's always broken.  he'd hold down our outdoor furniture during torrential storms so they don't blow away, as they do now.  

what is americana...  americana is music rooted and grown in blue-collar soil, beaten by rain and baked under the sun.  it's pruned of insincerity yet it's harvested in bulk, in prolific harvests of song after song from some head or heart.  it's like wheat, a crop so uninteresting yet a staple in our everyday diet.  we all consume it whenever we hear a story, or when someone strums her guitar.  the presence of the sound is like the beginning of a story, and it's heard, and it fades away and then ends.  and then another strum, another song, another bushel of wheat.  and it's all happening amidst pop music, indie rock, electronica and hip hop.  americana is so obvious that it's hidden.  we all recognize a folk song within a few seconds, but it's a partitioned activity, shelved for an open-mic or cafe experience. so for those who are working the farms, tilling the fields, they're doing so with john cage-like freedom.  that it's ingestible is the surprise.
i've noticed here in california that people, especially the privileged, are really individualistic.  they rarely ask others' opinions on anything, but expect everyone to hear their own.  they champion social and environmental issues, but they don't particularly care about their neighbor.  every week, my classmates and i ask what we did the past weekend.  it's probably the most boring conversation i have that week.  i don't know why we even care to ask... and i'm not passing judgment or complaining.  i'm just noticing these stark differences between conversations here and anywhere else i lived.  and anywhere else, the utility of the conversation is in the interaction, not the information.  here, individualism is so cherished that they'd rather err on the side of indifference rather than a true acceptance of others' opinions and beliefs.... so they don't even ask about them. 
but the not so privileged, from my experience, are not bereft of hardship.  which means they're not left to find the next social cause to rally behind or to search for the next nature-y activity.  sure, they give a shit about the environment, but they lack the guarded pretense and isolationism that not-so-subtly hides behind (and um... defines) the liberal, educated, "laid-back" californian.  for me, talking to the tow truck driver was the highlight of my day.  he actually asked me if i golfed before he went off about his golfing exploits.  he wasn't embarrassed to say he broke three clubs in one frustrating day on the course... but he wasn't showing off either.  he was just him, and that quality is hidden from me when i go to class and hang out with students and professors.
this all makes sense in my head, so bear with me.  when i listen to americana, the part in me that longs to hear a meaningful story begins to resonate, and it shakes off the pretense of having to laugh at people who aren't funny or my tiresome nodding listening to some guy's weekend expedition.  the voice, the guitar, it's the opposite of indifference and falsity.  it's elemental, it's a story.  when i listen to will oldham, i hear a real person singing.  his voice breaks and cracks as if you asked your friend to sing you a song unrehearsed.  he sounds like the soil, battered by the wind and the sun.  when i listen to califone, i hear real instruments and real guitars, rattling, vibrating the air.  the air!  when do we ever consider the air through which sound travels, except when we can feel its space through the sparseness of sounds.  
the ground, the air, the elements that speak through folk songs, they level people.  it's like living in cleveland, where we all deal with the same 5 month winter.  that common experience levels the high and mighty, so hills and valleys are not so disparate.  in california, on a university campus where recycling is more important than listening, we are leveled by a common experience that americana brings.  we can hear hopeless winters in folk music.  we share the stories and experiences of a common struggle when we listen to each fading song, or strum or lyric.