By Noah W. Bailey
Picking the best folk and Americana records of the year isn't nearly as hard as discarding those great records that just didn't feel right stuck in the category.
Releases by Calexico and DeVotchKa felt far too worldly to pigeonhole as folk or country, for instance, while Blitzen Trapper's fantastic Furr smells more like the Kinks than Neil Young. [Editor's note: That's why we put it on our indie-rock list.] We likewise discarded Shearwater's near-masterpiece Rook, despite the
(Photo by by Serina Nielson) Strange when an indie record store in Salt Lake City lists among its most popular releases a relatively unknown band from San Francisco. But in the Jan. 22 issue of Rolling Stone's "local favorites" column, the Bay Area's own Uzi & Ari's Headworms was listed among Neil Young, Fleet Foxes, and Bon Iver for the top selling records at a place called Slowtrain Records. Listening to tunes like "Missouri" "Missoula" and "Wolf Eggs," it's easy to hear the group's a