The Love Me Knots hail from Morgantown, West Virginia and consist of local music mainstays Brian Porterfield (lead vocals, guitar, keyboard), Bill Courtney (bass, back-up vocals), Raj Chandran (drums, back-up vocals), and "if he's free" Billy Matheny (everything else, back-up vocals). The Love Me Knots are one of the best examples of the poignant and redemptive music of this region. I often equate Porterfield's music to my hero Warren Zevon. Both understand and communicate something about the human condition in a deeply personal and honest way, and make no apologies for doing so in their own eclectic style.

I have been following Porterfield and the boys, in one incarnation or another, for the past eight years. I once traveled 2,600 miles to see a reunion show of Cheap Trucker Speed (a line-up of virtually the same musicians), have been knocked out raw by the V-Necks (again, same guys--different attitude and perhaps a little more Crown Royal), and have become a disciple of Matheny's outside-the-group project, Billy Matheny and the Frustrations.

But what impresses me most about these musicians is that hung over on a Sunday morning after a hell of a Saturday night show, unplugged, unmixed, unedited, in the rain and on the back porch of Porterfield's house these guys knocked out the five amazing songs we've posted here. And they did it in one take. A hardly what you'd call "emotionally balanced" group of real friends that create some brilliant music together, it is our absolute pleasure to introduce as our first musical post: The Love Me Knots