STURGILL SIMPSON has reignited the century-old war between country music's commercial center and its outlaw spirit with a FACEBOOK post kindly requesting that the powers-that-be on MUSIC ROW "drop all the formulaic cannon fodder bulls*** they've been pumping down AMERICA's rural throat for the last 30 years." I'm not sure how he settled on the 30-year range, which seems off to me, historically speaking. But kudos to his intentions, assuming his intentions are to pour kerosene on a fire that has long provided energy to both sides of the great country divide. The two sides aren't nearly as far apart as either might think. The great outlaw heroes, from the CARTER FAMILY to HANK WILLIAMS to JOHNNY CASH, were all essentially pop stars, and MUSIC ROW has a solid history of turning outlaws like MIRANDA LAMBERT and ERIC CHURCH into NASHVILLE icons. It's no coincidence that minutes after Simpson posted his rant, in which he complained about the ACADEMY OF COUNTRY MUSIC AWARDS naming an award after his late friend MERLE HAGGARD, who hated the country establishment, the ACM announced that the first recipient would be Lambert, which forced Simpson to update his post to note how much Hag respected her. Still, he added, "something tells me that in her heart, she knows I'm dead on"... To the people complaining that the MTV VMAs insufficiently represented rock in this year's show -- you know who you are -- I would like to point out that the VMAs didn't represent jazz very well either... RIP GENE WILDER (seriously, somebody please stop this year; I want to get off) and BIG MAKK.