Thursday, February 2 2012
Tower Songs: Townes Van Zandt
I'll Be There in the Morning offers an affectionate but hardly rose-colored view of Townes Van Zandt and his influence on other songwriters.
Tuesday, January 3 2012
Kicked in the Teeth by Art
For a full day, it seemed like I got pummeled by unflinching art. And I feel like I'm better for it.
Thursday, September 29 2011
The Future of Music Looks Like a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland
I can just imagine some kind of electromagnetic pulse taking out all of the world's computers, leaving us with little more than the Ferrante and Teicher albums that litter every thrift store in the country.
Thursday, August 11 2011
The Return of 120 Minutes
120 Minutes returns to guide us through the alternative/indie/hip-hop/whatever-else universe. But what's a show to do when nothing's as hard to find as it used to be?
Thursday, June 2 2011
Beware the Urge to Serve Two Masters, Especially One So ‘Primitive’ as the Blues
They say Bluesman Robert Johnson went to a crossroads one night and sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his guitar prowess -- but no one ever accused him of serving two masters.
Friday, April 15 2011
Record Store Day: The Cost in the Grooves
For a few hours each year, music geeks converge on indie record stores in hopes of scoring vinyl Holy Grails -- and then scurry back to their computers to watch auction prices soar on the items they didn’t get.
Wednesday, January 5 2011
Private Universe: Crowded House Salvages 2010
One concert experience can be a magic reminder of why you fell in love with music in the first place.
Wednesday, October 13 2010
Ah, Halloween: It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… for Music
A zombie has a better chance of making it through the heavy ordnance firing range near my house than I have of making a mix – even a Halloween mix—that doesn’t devolve into sad, introspective territory.
Tuesday, August 3 2010
Jukebox Heroes: A Long Delayed Return to Classic Rock—Which Can Be Pretty Damn Good
Maybe classic rock's most bothersome aspect is that it traffics in arguably one of the most fertile creative periods in rock history, but leaves the impression that most bands never wrote more than three or four songs.
Monday, May 24 2010
Souvenirs: The Enduring Appeal of John Prine
The time feels right for not just another live album, but for a long overdue John Prine tribute record. This summer, we get both.
Wednesday, March 31 2010
Sinnin’ and Sin-Eatin’ Southern Rock
Bands like Southern Culture on the Skids and the Legendary Shack Shakers do their best to preserve a sense of Southern character.
Monday, January 25 2010
Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary
Without this guide "jack stropper" (someone who's trying to steal your woman), "dead cat on the line" (a problem from the past), or "my stomach thinks my throat's been cut" (powerful hunger) can leave you scratching your head.
Monday, November 30 2009
Rock ‘n’ Roll Does Middle-age Awfully Well
Bruce Springsteen, among others, is not above hammering nails into the coffin of the open-road mythology that he’s built for himself.
Wednesday, September 30 2009
Truck Drivin’ Songwritin’ Man
Trucking songs, with their heart-of-gold waitresses, foggy nights, heavy loads, and rolling tires, must hit some modern emotional sweet spot, and musicians on the road share a kindred spirit with truckers.
Thursday, August 6 2009
They Killed John Henry but They Won’t Kill Me
In these days of economic turmoil, massive job losses, and corporate profiteering, you'd expect to hear more rewritings of the John Henry legend.
Monday, June 8 2009
Blood Meridian: The Last of the True
Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian has been called unfilmable, but that doesn't stop Ben Nichols from getting ahead of the game and crafting a worthy soundtrack.
Wednesday, March 25 2009
Heaven Can Wait ‘Til I Finish This Remix
Should I die before I wake, I’d better make sure I’ve already got my iPod / mix-tapes / CDs/ vinyl in order.
Friday, January 30 2009
Art Imitates Death
One of the misconceptions that Graeme Thomson deals with in his book I Shot a Man in Reno is that music about death is somehow out of the norm. In fact, death finds its way into pretty much every type of music.
Monday, November 17 2008
Bleary Eyed Duty: The Unflinching Testimony of David Eugene Edwards
In a world where you can have a Christian version of pretty much any genre, Woven Hand's David Eugene Edwards is a real outlier because you wouldn't know where to put him if he were a secular artist.
Thursday, July 24 2008
Vinyl: Got to Get You Into My Life
Maybe it's because current methods of listening aren't cutting it that I've started buying more vinyl. Not because it sounds better or evokes nostalgia, but because listening to vinyl is a more structured and formal experience.
Monday, June 9 2008
Righteous Paths
The Drive-By Truckers' live shows once played like a songwriters-in-the-round session with electric guitars and increasingly empty bottles of Jack Daniels. Then Jason Isbell came along -- and it only got better.
Friday, March 21 2008
Anger With Stoic Dignity
Protest music can go one of three ways: angry, storytelling, or communal. Sowing the Seeds is communal, meant to shore up the spirits of people who are locked together, arm-in-arm, to fight for a common cause.
Monday, January 21 2008
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back (A Eulogy for the E Street Sound)
When it comes to his work with the E Street Band, Springsteen seems to have tempered or even jettisoned other songwriting trademarks, such as the sense of place that informed so many of his songs.
Monday, December 10 2007
Young Upstarts and Wily Veterans
If you thought Satan couldn't invent a few new rides for you, you obviously forgot that he's got all the time in the world and plenty of cheap labor -- and other thoughts on the 2007 roots music scene.
Friday, September 21 2007
The Cradle Will Rock
While my wife sings sea chantys to our baby, I'm finding plenty of dark, tranquil passages from Bruce Springsteen to help her sleep. Beats tales of the Black Death, miscarriages, and executions found in traditional nursery rhymes.
Monday, July 23 2007
Resurrections
The co-founder of the maverick reissue label the Numero Group talks about seeking out the eccentric, saving the unknown, and releasing only what you love.
Friday, May 4 2007
Collective Impulses
The wife disposing of her ex-husband's collection. The estate sale. The stash of records sold for pennies on the dollar because the water bill was overdue. Collecting music often depends on someone else's misfortune.
Wednesday, December 20 2006
2006, Through Roots-Colored Glasses
It's the same old complaint every year, isn't it? You do what you can, you hear what you can, and you wait to see what takes root in your brain as a keeper.
Monday, September 25 2006
Wild Abandon
It may seem quaint now, even after punk's scorched-earth campaign, to think of '50s rockabilly as a danger to Western Civilization, especially in light of pop culture's rampant envelope-pushing since then. But a closer inspection would make even the seen-it-all cynics take pause.
