Too often, when we think of rock music, we think of angst-filled youths filled with passion, anger and yearning. What’s missing in that equation is that this organic music has always been as much fun to listen to and play as it was liberating and cathartic. Often what gets lost is something that The Black…
Are you ready for Bill Callahan to tell you his next set of stories? You better be because not only is Callahan one of the best storytellers of this time and Shepherd In Sheepskin Vest tells how life really is and you know Bill means it. Since his last excellent record, Dream River (2013), was…
It’s crazy that it has taken 14 years for Iron & Wine and Calexico to officially pair up for a follow up after their solid debut mini-album, In The Reins (2005). The pairing of these talented musicians has always made sense as their style, substance and execution have a very similar synergy. Given that knowledge…
There’s nothing better than when music and art work together and create something special. That’s exactly what Kishi Bashi accomplishes on his fourth studio record Omoiyari. Omoiyari is an art composition that dives into the US’s past internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII and explores the parallels between 40’s America and the current US administration’s actions….
The Get Up Kids came out of Kansas City in the mid-90s in that second wave of emo, punk/pop bands like Blink-182, Jimmy Eat World, and My Chemical Romance. Best remembered for their 1999 release, “Something to Write Home About,” the band broke up after four albums in 2005 only to re-group four years later….
The Saint of Lost Causes, the eighth album from singer/songwriter Justin Townes Earle, is such a solid example from start to finish of traditional country & country/blues songwriting that you could use it as a text book for aspiring songwriters in that mold. Of course, you’d might expect that from someone with that name, the…
After addressing the coming of age issues of Transcendental Youth back in 2012, the violent world of professional wrestling on Beat The Champ in 2015, and the dark music and culture of the 80’s era Goths in ’17, singer/songwriter John Darnielle leads The Mountain Goats into imaginative gaming world of Dungeons & Dragons with their…
Gang of Four started out in the same art school/university pool from Leeds, UK, in the late 70’s that gave us the Mekons. Bringing together a unique appreciation for funk rhythms and electronic dub sounds into a punk sensibility with politically-charged lyrics, Gang of Four broke real creative ground. In their first album, Entertainment!, Gang…
The first thought that comes to mind when I think of Glen Hansard is that opening sequence in the movie Once, where we hear the singer/songwriter alone on acoustic guitar as the camera moves in one seamless longshot along the streets of Dublin, until we finally see him playing his acoustic guitar and singing out,…
Andrew Bird, the singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, most often associated with his violin playing, has been plugging away producing smart, classically-influenced indie-rock (with the rare excursion into country) since first appearing on three albums with the Squirrel Nut Zippers in the mid-90’s. His first three albums as a bandleader arrived under the moniker, Andrew Bird’s Bowl…
