When the Sax Went Wah-Wah After the Guitar
The wah-wah pedal. It’s the foot-stomping device guitarists use to add a taste of toe-tapping funk or cosmic psychedelic noodling, and then it moved to the saxophone.
music history
Andy Irvine, the Balkans, and the Long Road to ‘EastWind’
Irish musician Andy Irvine worked hard to learn the challenging musical vocabulary of Balkan folk music, while his colleagues feared being invited to play the music with him.
When Plainsong Searched for Amelia Earhart
Purdue University recently announced a new expedition to discover what happened to Amelia Earhart. In 1972, the band Plainsong sang of its own investigation into the heroine’s mythology.
The Strokes’ ‘Is This It’ Signaled the Death of Rock Journalism
Steven Hyden’s book on the Strokes, Is This It, is an entertaining and often amusing defence of a band whose importance has always been easier to understand as a cultural phenomenon than as a straightforward commercial success.
The Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ Has a Message from Your Future
Listening to the Beatles’ Revolver today, especially “Tomorrow Never Knows”, one gets the uncanny feeling that this album is not from 1966, but from the future.
Who and What Pop Music Is for Is ‘Mighty Real’
Barry Walters’ Mighty Real is 30 glorious years of music that can be “read as a metaphor of LGBTQ existence”, regardless of who created it.
The Resonating Hypnotism of ‘Orange Twin Field Works Vol. 1’
Listening to Orange Twin Field Works Vol. 1 today – not as ethnography but as a fully realized composition – Jeff Mangum’s pre-Bulgaria sensibility appears.
Olé! Allez! Go! World Cup Songs That Make the Earth Move
Made for the masses, and specifically for football fans, Most World Cup songs sound like AI slop, but there are some rare gems to be found, and we’ve got them.
Scotland’s the Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s American Revolution
The strange but true story of Scottish rock band the Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s hit single about the Boston Tea Party. Well, it was a hit in the UK, at least.
Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” and the Love of Myth and Ritual
There is far more to the title and meaning of Peter Gabriel’s song “In Your Eyes” than meets the eye, as it turns the lover’s eyes into a dwelling of belief.
Protest Music from Today’s Folk Troubadours
Today’s troubadours travel through cyberspace, and artists like Jessie Welles, Dylan Earl, and Nick Shoulders are at the vanguard of protest music.
When the Door Nearly Closed on Evanescence
With the success of Evanescence’s Fallen and The Open Door, which held to Amy Lee’s vision, she should have earned Wind-Up’s trust, not its vitriol.