Posts by Maeri Ferguson

An artist as great as Erin Rae deserves a room packed to the brim at her live shows, and though her show at New York City’s City Winery on July 14 seemed criminally under attended, the audience was rapt. Rae released her new record Putting On Airs earlier this summer, and its pastoral mix of […]

[rating=7,00] If you caught John Moreland on tour any time in 2017, you were treated to a mind-blowing performance from his sideman and sole bandmate, John Calvin Abney. The fellow Oklahoman is a multi-instrumentalist and managed to keep up with the notoriously brisk pace of Moreland’s setlist, switching guitars and jumping on harmonica at lightning […]

[rating=8.00] Hearing Neko Case’s voice feels like coming home again. It is all at once powerfully singular and familiar, but still mysterious and bewildering in its beauty. A new Neko Case record is like a gift with endless layers to unwrap, and Hell-On – her first since 2013’s The Worse Things Get, The Harder I […]

[rating=8.00] It’s rare when an artist enters our lives fully realized and with a confidence that convinces us we’ve been following them for a long time. Brent Cobb has that something and it was evident in 2016 when he released his phenomenal record Shine On Rainy Day. Though Cobb had been around before this, it […]

In an interesting pairing, Ryley Walker and Calexico shared the stage at Brooklyn’s Music Hall of Williamsburg April 28th. Walker delivered a hypnotic set to warm things up for the seven-piece band, bringing his heady guitar shredding to the crowd before they started the grooving and shaking that was to come. Walker’s boggy sound had […]

With a voice like that, Ashley Monroe could have all the confidence in the world. But last week, performing a set at Brooklyn’s Rough Trade on April 24th, there was trepidation in the way she held herself. It sure didn’t affect her singing, and it faded after a few songs, but it was clear she […]

[rating=8.00] There’s that old adage, “they don’t make ‘em like they used to,” and then there’s Joshua Hedley. The buzz country singer’s major label debut Mr. Jukebox (on Jack White’s Third Man Records, no less) feels like stepping back in time to an era of rhinestone suits and waltzes, but without all the dust. Hedley’s […]

Longtime fans of Nashville singer-songwriter Tristen Gaspadarek were treated to a wide-ranging live set at a recent show at Brooklyn’s Union Pool. On the heels of her fizzy 2017 release Sneaker Waves, Tristen might have stuck behind her signature keyboard for the entirety of the show, but instead, we were treated to a more rock […]

Smiles were plentiful last Thursday night (3/29) at Brooklyn Bowl when Erika Wennerstrom performed her stellar opening set for the Drive-By Truckers. In the first night of two shows in a row, Wennerstrom and her band (and the Truckers) left it all on stage and left the packed room with full hearts. Decked out in […]

[rating=7.00] When I first saw the Naked Giants’ frenetic shredding onstage a few months back, it felt like capturing lightning in a bottle. Their performance was youthful and wild like they were making it up as they went along and it just happened to come out perfectly. Their look was nostalgic, like 70s punk colliding […]