Posts by Gary Schwind

Michigan may not be the first place you think of when you think about country music, but if you spend enough time exploring music, you’re bound to find the unexpected. Rachel Brooke is a country artist from Michigan that makes you take notice. Just ask Shooter Jennings, who said, “Rachel is just hitting her stride, […]

Malin Pettersen is pretty well-known in her native Norway. She appeared on Norway’s version of American Idol. In 2018, she won a Spellemann Prize for Best Country Album. She has also become known as a voice actress for American movie franchises such as Lego and My Little Pony. In recent years she has also gained […]

If you’ve ever seen William Elliott Whitmore perform, you know that he is one of those performers whose power comes from the fact that he can provide so much depth with minimal instrumentation. He lands pretty firmly in the folk-Americana arena, but has been known to open for bands like Clutch. I’m with You is […]

Nikki O’Neill is an artist who was born and lives in Los Angeles, but spent her childhood in Stockholm in a tri-lingual household. The record player in that house in Stockholm played a lot of records by Al Green and other soul artists. That soul music was absorbed and is now a big component in […]

With projects as varied as Armchair Martian and Drag the River, it’s pretty clear that Jon Snodgrass is comfortable in some different musical arenas. His new album Tace isn’t really a solo album, it is a project that falls under the umbrella of Jon Snodgrass and Buddies. Some of the buddies include Stephen Egerton (Descendents, […]

As music fans, we often want our favorite artists to continue doing the same sort of thing that made us fans in the first place. On the one hand, it’s understandable. On the other hand, it’s unfair to the artists. After all, they experience different things as they move on their lives, and those experiences […]

One of the great things about art is that you never know what will inspire an artist to create. For Blitzen Trapper on the new album Holy Smokes, Future Jokes, the inspiration was Bardo. What’s Bardo? Well, it’s the transitional state between death and rebirth, thanks for asking. Wouldn’t it be difficult to write about […]

Sometimes you see the description a band has for itself and you wonder what it means. In the case of 49 Winchester, you don’t really have to wonder. The band describes its sound as “alt-country soul from the heart of Appalachia.” Granted, you have to know what Appalachian music sounds like, but alt-country soul in […]

An all-female surf band isn’t exactly a common thing, so when you find one, it’s noteworthy. The Neptunas is even more noteworthy simply because of the way the band was formed. In 1994, bassist Pamita Neptuna mailed out flyers for an all-girl surf band. The flyers read, “You don’t have to know how to play […]

When you learn that there is a band called Killer Whale, you might immediately think that it’s a band that plays loud and aggressive music. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth with this band from New Orleans. As evidenced by the new album Tastes Like Yesterday, this is a band that delivers […]

Gitkin is the alter ego of Brian J. of Pimps of Joytime. That may give you some idea of the sound of the new Gitkin album Safe Passage, or it may not. After all, he calls his music Outernational Psychedelic Twang, which is not only a mouthful, but also hard to envision without hearing it. […]

When you spend enough time studying music, you learn that there are some unlikely stories of how bands came together. Blues Pills has as unlikely an origin story as any band you are will encounter. Zack Anderson and Cory Berry (formerly of Radio Moscow) met Swedish singer Elin Larsson in Iowa. They recorded two songs, […]

It’s not unusual for a musician to come from a musical family, and Skylar Gregg certainly comes from a musical family. They moved to Nashville (where else?) so her dad (a songwriter) and her mom (a pianist) could pursue their musical paths. Skylar is following her own musical path with the release of two previous […]

For a lot of people, banjo music invokes a response similar to Homer Simpson when he shouted, “Aaah! Hillbillies!” Granted, a lot of banjo music like bluegrass originated in the hills. But there is far more to bluegrass and banjo music than a bunch of guys in dirty overalls, as Gangstagrass proves.  Gangstagrass is a […]

Andy Blunda (aka Blunda) is a composer and musician from North Hollywood. He is a busy man, and even if you don’t know it, you may have heard his compositions on shows like Ax Men and Jay Leno’s Garage. On top of his duties composing music for television shows, he is a producer and has […]

Dirty Streets is a trio from Memphis whose albums have always been filled with soul-infused boogie rock songs that could just as easily have been recorded in the mid- to late 70s. In fact, if these guys had been alive then, it’s easy to imagine that they would now be a staple on classic-rock radio.  […]

Last year Charley Crockett released The Valley, an album of 16 songs that was recorded before he had open-heart surgery. It showed his abilities as a songwriter and storyteller. Not only that, it showed that he is a country musician that is worthy of your attention. It would have been easy for Crockett to rest […]

Dirt Reynolds is an artist who adopted that persona because his birth name (Chris Watts) is unfortunately shared with an infamous figure from Colorado. He recently released his debut album Scalawag. It is an alt-country album that brings acts like the Drive-By Truckers to mind both in sound and in the way it explores some […]

People have been trying to bury rock and roll for a long time, declaring countless times that rock is dead. Well, if Mojo Nixon taught us nothing else (and there’s a lot to be learned from Mojo), he taught us that “you can’t kill rock n roll.”  If you need proof that Mojo is correct […]

Blindboss is an experimental one-man act from Orange County, California. His shows have been known to include pre-recorded bass and drums while he plays guitar or synthesizers and sings. All this while projecting images of himself on a screen behind him. Sure, it might seem like a lot of work, but it’s really no harder […]