It’s been about six months since Willie Nelson last put out a record (a near eternity in Nelson time), so of course he’s got another one ready to release. Keeping in theme the first offering of “Willie’s Secret Stash” (a collection of duets with his older sister Bobbie), “Vol. 2” finds Nelson teaming up with his sons Micah and Lukas, both solid singers in their own right.
It takes less than a minute into Chris Barron’s latest album before you recognize where you’ve heard that voice before. Twenty-five years ago, The Spin Doctors were inescapable. You couldn’t turn on the radio, the TV or even go to the movies without hearing “Two Princes,” “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” or “Jimmy Olson’s Blues.” The jam band-lite songs connected with fans instantly and just as easily elicited vitriol from…
50 years together and NRBQ are still not showing any signs of wear. This latest 5 song EP, a mix of covers and new originals, comes not long of Omnivore put out the band’s career-spanning five-CD box set.
The music world is cluttered with tragically underrated bands. Groups that didn’t get their due until long after they’d broken up, despite their influence heard on a raft of more successful bands. Before R.E.M. there was Big Star, before Cheap Trick there was The Raspberries and before bands like Devo and The B-52’s, there was Captain Beefheart. So, North Carolina/Athens, GA’s Flat Duo Jets are in good company. In their…
In the first of three planned EPs scheduled to come out over the next four months, Silverplanes lay out an impressive, if brief collection of seemingly timeless guitar-heavy, atmospheric pop.
As any fan of The Replacements is likely to tell you their live shows were either brilliant examples of inspired Midwest punk rock at its finest or a drunken mess of bellowed obscenities, fistfights and thrown instruments. This surprise live recording of The Replacements, recorded in Hoboken during their Tim tour, is thankfully the former. This 29-song set marks the first official live set by the world’s most-underrated band (trademark…
Corbin Reiff must have known what he was setting himself up for when he decided to tackle a list of the best concerts, year by year. No matter how spot on his picks are – and with a couple of nitpicks here and there they are – there are bound to be people who have a problem with his selections. The only thing music nerds like more than talking about…
Indie pop musician Brad Peterson had already put out several well-received albums going back a decade, shared stages with a slew of greats from Jeff Buckley to Radiohead and then a spinal injury left him partially paralyzed. Through years of therapy he was finally able to hold a guitar again, and eventually built up a collection of songs that lead to the powerful “ellipses record”.
Judging by The Len Price 3’s latest you’d think the late ‘70s never ended. Steeped in some of the best influences The Who, The Clash and The Kinks have to offer, this UK-based trio have turned in one solid garage/punk pop album after another and “Kentish Longtails” is more of the same…. And that is far from being a bad thing. One of the appeals of the band is that…
The Singing Earth is hardly your standard rock star memoir. Despite playing drums for a slew of bands in Seattle at the height of Grunge’s moment (including Screaming Trees, Mad Season and Skin Yard), Barrett Martin takes a thoughtful, original take on the traditional musician’s bio with his book.
Eagle Rock and The Rolling Stones continue their incredible From The Vault series with this 2015 Hollywood, CA set devoted almost exclusively to the “Sticky Fingers” record.
Long after the media and major labels finally left Seattle alone, the music scene there continued to flourish without the spotlight, branching out from the one or two assigned genres they were shouldered with thanks to lazy journalism. The result is a slew of amazing, inventive bands that still call Seattle home. And among them is Ephrata.
Zack Buchanan, playing under the moniker The Outdoor Type, may just have one official EP to be judged on at the moment, but in those four tracks he shows immense promise. Sounding like a slightly more laid-back Frank Turner, there are hints at folk, pop and Americana, all vying for attention on Perspectives, the Australian natives Netwerk debut.
Many (most?) bands are quick to point out just how hard their music is to classify, but to be honest you can usually ascribe a tag to just about any group just a few songs in, regardless of how long they have managed to convince themselves they are genre agnostic. The Michigan trio, The Accidentals, may just be one of the few exceptions, though.
Fifty years after its release, the polarizing Rolling Stones classic (yes, classic) Their Satanic Majesties Request is finally getting a much-deserved re-release in the form of a double vinyl set (including mono and stereo versions). The package also includes a double hybrid Super Audio CD as well.
With the recent passing of Leon Russell and Merle Haggard, it seems like we’re in danger of losing a precious sub-genre of music. Both, along with a handful of others like Willie Nelson (still around, thankfully!) and Waylon Jennings, played a skillful brand of bullshit-free country music that added in the swamp sound of Mussel Shoals and a “no fucks left to give” Outlaw vibe.
It’s been 14 years since Gene Loves Jezebel last put out a record, but by the third track on their latest effort, the fantastically maudlin “How Do You Say Goodbye (To Someone You Love),” the band proves they are still relevant.
One of the greatest aspects of this long-running, hilariously creative cartoon series that posits a word where Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig are life partners is summed up on the back of the book with a blurb from Rollins.
Canadians, the longtime punching bags of their neighbors to the south, are clearly having the last laugh. While we elected quite possibly the dumbest egotist in the world, they had to put in place a hunky, rational leader, who’s pretty much the polar opposite of Trump; Our Justice Department is weighing shutting down medicinal weed, while they went ahead and legalized pot. We could at least lord our punk bands…
Tommy Stinson surprised many earlier this year by resurrecting his old band (or the moniker at least), Bash & Pop to put out a new full LP of tracks. The result was “Anything Could Happen,” a dozen down and dirty straight up rock songs that hues pretty close to The Replacements, the band that started it all for Tommy.