Happy 65th Birthday to Billy Idol (Watch “Eyes Without A Face” Video)
LISTEN: Izaak Opatz Gives Dierks Bentley’s “Drunk on a Plane” A Dirtwave Makeoever
Only a place like Montana could have fostered the splintered artistic visions of someone as wonderfully askew as Izaak Opatz. With his time split between Big Sky wilderness and the bohemian oasis of Missoula, Izaak’s muses are varied. Sojourns to the more bustling music cities of Nashville and Los Angeles notwithstanding, Izaak’s songs can be […]
LISTEN: Son Lux Achieves Alternative R&B Glory With “Prophecy”
From the start, Son Lux has operated as something akin to a sonic test kitchen. The band strives to question deeply held assumptions about how music is made and reconstruct it from a molecular level. What began as a solo project for founder Ryan Lott expanded in 2014, thanks to kinship with Ian Chang and […]
Boston Singer-Songwriter Kaiti Jones Evokes Aimee Mann On Lucid “Weak Days”
Boston-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Kaiti Jones writes songs to make sense of the world, as potent storytellers do. Her songs are a garden that she tends to, rooted in existential angst or failed romances that grow into retrospective anecdotes, sometimes evolving over months or even years. “I often write or finish songs years later, when […]
40 Years Ago Today – The Jam Release Bittersweet Rhythmic Fifth LP ‘Sound Affects’ (Listen to “Pretty Green”)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s ‘Live In Maui’ Serves Up Least Pleasant Sounding Of Hendrix Archival Releases (ALBUM REVIEW)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience concert played on July 30th, 1970 during The Cry of Love tour dubbed Rainbow Bridge has always been a bit confusing for Hendrix fans. The 1971 film only contained a bit of Hendrix playing while the album titled Rainbow Bridge actually had no music from this concert at all. Now a […]
50 Years Ago Today – The Kinks Release ‘Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One’ LP (Listen to “Strangers”)
50 Years Later: Revisiting Arguably The Greatest Beatles Solo LP: George Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’
With 50 years of hindsight, the all-around lavish nature of George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (released 11/27/70), seems like nothing so much as destiny. Consider the confluence of circumstances surrounding its release: with music having become the bellwether of culture by 1970, this greatest of all the arts had ignited a corresponding elevation of […]
On Mixed Bag ‘Cyr,’ Smashing Pumpkins Break To Pop Flourishes, Keyboards & Beats (ALBUM REVIEW)
Smashing Pumpkins has always been a band that bucks trends, incorporating psychedelia and metal at a time when it was anything but cool in the alternative world, using densely layered sounds when the rock landscape was all about raw simplicity, and otherwise defying expectations. Starting with 1998’s Adore, the band defied its biggest trend, working […]
LISTEN: London Newcomers Lucy Lu & Uma Team Up On Trippy “Black Bees”
Lucy Lu is the moniker of London born artist and producer Luke Bower. Donning the name just before his 21st birthday, it’s ambiguity is useful – often the project shape-shifts from 11 piece band to solo project, from collaborative collective to bedroom producer – usually all within a week. On the eve of borders closing due to […]