Posts by Gary Schwind

Jillette Johnson is an artist who started writing music at age eight. By the time she was a teenager, she played three-hour sets of original music at a restaurant near her home in New York. To say that music has been a labor of love for her is an understatement. Like all of us, Johnson […]

Catching a listener’s attention isn’t an easy chore simply because so many bands exist. One thing a band can do to catch the attention, even before the listener hears a note of their music, is to have a description that is more descriptive than “alternative”. Chicken Snake’s music is described as southern voodoo-psych blues, which […]

When COVID-19 hit, musicians had to figure out what to do with themselves. After all, what is one to do when bands are not allowed to gather or tour? For Ghalia Volt, the answer was simple: become a one-woman band. While her previous albums were with a band, performing solo was not foreign to her […]

When you look at the history of the blues, you see quite a few artists that were “discovered” later in life. Alabama Slim is one of those artists. He was born in 1939 and grew up listening to 78s of artists like Big Bill Broonzy and Lightnin’ Hopkins. After Hurricane Katrina, Slim and his cousin […]

The Luxurious Faux Furs is a duo that started in New York, which seems like a pretty fitting place for a garage-rock duo. The band has since moved to New Orleans, and their adoptive hometown seems to have affected their music. Granted, you’ll still hear a lot of garage rock, but now that rock sound […]

Miss Lava is a band from Lisbon that has produced three albums of groove-laden heavy rock. Doom Machine is the band’s fourth studio album and it gives you plenty of what you would expect from a band on Small Stone Records. Namely, it gives you heavy doses of loud guitar and beats that are sure […]

COVID-19 has taken live music from us, but it has been interesting to see how musicians have responded to the pandemic. Some have written protest songs. Some seem to have found a deep creative well while being stuck at home. Some, like Countless Thousands, have created a rock opera. Yes, that’s right. This punk band […]

When you receive music from Voodoo Rhythm Records, you can bet that it’s going to be something unusual. But even if you’re prepared for something unusual, you’re probably not entirely prepared for Degurutieni. Degurutieni is a one-man band who grew up in Osaka, Japan. He began creating music when he was 16, using whatever he […]

GNL Zamba is an artist from Uganda who grew up with the sounds of Fela Kuti, Ice Cube, and Gil Scott Heron, all of whom were played on the radio when he was growing up. It may be hard to imagine a sound that incorporates such disparate influences, but that is exactly what GNL Zamba […]

The accordion often gets a bad rap. For some people, the instrument is an automatic strike against the music that includes it. Call Me Spinster, on the other hand, was inspired when three sisters found an accordion in their grandfather’s closet. That led to exploring a variety of instruments including mandolin and upright bass. On […]

Ley Line is a group that came together at the Telluride Folk Festival in 2013. It is described as “miltilingual folk”, which sounds like the title of a Putumayo collection. It is a correct if incomplete description. The music of the group is based in world folk but goes much deeper than just that.  The […]

Movie Club is an instrumental duo from Venice Beach, California. That in itself tells you a couple things. It tells you that this duo isn’t interested in traditional band structure or in the typical rock-song structure. They recorded two EPs Kraken and Hammerhead in collaboration with producer Matt Wignall and Lettuce bassist Erick “Jesus” Coomes. […]

Katarina Pejak is a classically-trained pianist who released three albums in her native Serbia. Through a variety of avenues, her attention turned to the blues, with influences like Otis Spann, and Ray Charles, among others. On her new EP Outside Looking In, you can hear some of that blues influence, but you certainly can’t call […]

Chico Mann was a member of Antibalas, so it’s fair to say that he knows his way around funk. In fact, when he moved from New York to Los Angeles, his goal was to start an Afro-rock band called Here Lies Man. “What you’re hearing on this record is music I wrote for that band, […]

The Tibbs is a soul band from The Netherlands that first came on the scene in 2012 and built a solid following after the release of the debut album Takin’ Over in 2016. The singles “Next Time” and “The Story Goes” were featured on radio stations in North America and Europe. Another Shot Fired is […]

Papa Rosko, like many musicians, has settled in Nashville. However, when he was growing up, he lived in places like Turkey, the Philippines, Mexico, and Canada. At each stop, he absorbed the music that surrounded him. He fell in love with Caribbean music when he lived in Canada and had a friend from Trinidad. On […]

Honey Made is a soul and funk band from Austin that has shared the stage with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic and Lee Fields among others.  Brand New is the band’s first full-length album and was produced by Steve Berlin, who insisted the band record at Texas Treefort Studios in Austin. Of the new album, […]

As the music business evolves, musicians have to find new ways to adapt. It used to be that an artist would go into a studio and record an album. Not to say that albums are passe, but music fans have gravitated away from listening to albums. One artist who has adapted to the new style […]

Life is full of happy accidents. One of those is how Chamomile and Whiskey came up with its name. One night Marie Borgman and Koda Kerl mixed Evan Williams with chamomile tea. It sounds like a remedy your grandparents might have prescribed when you were a bit under the weather. The pair decided that the […]

Vanessa Collier is a musician who started playing the saxophone at age nine. While she was studying at Berklee, she landed a job touring with Joe Louis Walker. On top of that, she won a 2020 Blues Music Award for Best Instrumentalist –horn player. It was Walker who counseled her to strike out on her […]