Posts by Neil Ferguson

Years before the internet and smartphones gave everyone a platform, parody culture was the domain of a small handful of entertainers who took the craft as seriously as the pop culture artists and actors they mocked. The undisputed champion of this world was none other than “Weird Al” Yankovic, whose groundbreaking talent set the bar […]

At first glance, a festival that is blatantly branded and named after its corporate parent seems ripe for protest by the cool, socially liberated kids. But Pabst Blue Ribbon holds a special place in the heart of anyone who has ever spent late nights in a dive bar smoking butts and pounding the cheap lager, […]

For anyone who knows anything about the jam band scene, the 90s was arguably the golden era. Pioneers like the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers were bigger than ever, even if their band members weren’t in the greatest of shape, while the mid-80s and early 90s gave rise to a new wave of grassroots […]

Project Pabst was first launched in 2014 as a two-day ode to the favorite macro lager of hipsters and dive bar patrons across the land before being somewhat surprisingly discontinued in 2018 after the festival had expanded to other cities. Here in the craft beer mecca of Portland, Oregon, the festival had a solid little […]

To see James McMurtry live is to witness one of the finest American songwriters at work. Lucky for us, the 63-year-old Texan troubadour is still a road dog, criss-crossing the country for much of the year while somehow still maintaining a fairly consistent and now legendary residency at the fabled Continental Club in Austin. If […]

Two of the most tried and true acts in rock and roll music are Deer Tick and the Drive-by Truckers. Resilience, quality songwriting and musicianship, and an ability to stand the test of time are all qualities they share despite one hailing from the Northeast and the other from the South. And this was just […]

Among the many big shed tours that take place in any given year, perhaps the most fascinating in recent memory is Sessanta. This outing brings together A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus – three acts that inspire a certain level of mainstream nostalgia while still dabbling comfortably in the fringe. With such big names – […]

What happens when two of the most veteran acts in heavy rock music band together for an extensive tour? Though the Melvins and Napalm Death occupy different musical spheres, it somehow makes sense to pair them up for their Savage Imperial Death March tour as two hugely influential acts that have never compromised on their […]

With a soulful, down-to-earth, and playful personality that bridges the divide between entertainer and audience, Levi Foster is a natural showman who has been making a living by performing country and rock cover tunes at venues and festivals throughout his home state of Virginia and beyond. After hightailing to Nashville in his mid-20s to seek […]

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you have likely followed the epic touring schedule of Jack White over the past year. Since the release of his album No Name in 2024, the former White Stripes frontman and soon to be Rock and Roll Hall Of Famer has been on an epic barnstorming mission starting […]

If you’ve followed Jason Isbell’s career for roughly the past two decades, you’ve by now likely realized that there are two sides to the gifted songwriter and guitarist. On the one side, there is the prodigal Alabama son who put in his years of hard living and harder rocking with the Drive-by Truckers while amassing […]

When Geordie Greep suddenly announced the end of Black Midi last year, the math rock outfit he had founded in his teens and co-fronted, it was met with shock. After all, the band was on the up and up as they released albums that increasingly appealed to broader audiences. Greep’s next move made it clear […]

Considering the worldwide influence that the late Fela Kuti’s Afrobeat music has had on everyone from the Talking Heads to Arcade Fire and modern-day funk and hip-hop, it’s perplexing that the small handful of acts waving the torch for the real thing sometimes fall below the radar. This music is energetic and full of life, […]

Last fall, we were gifted with a somewhat unexpected release from a new “supergroup” of sorts called The Hard Quartet. Featuring Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus along with venerable go-to talents Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly, the group’s album dabbled in a sort of worship of old Britpop and psych, freak-folk, and garage rock, albeit […]

2025 started terribly for Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith, the brothers who form the core lineup of folk-rock outfit Dawes. They both lost their homes in the Altadena fire in Los Angeles in January, as well as their recording studio with pretty much every piece of equipment they owned. In a twist of tragic irony, it […]

The last time the four members of Phish all set foot in Portland, it was a different century. September 12, 1999 at the now-gone Portland Meadows, to be exact. In the more than twenty-five years since that date, a lot has happened. The Vermont jam legends played a marathon show to usher in the new […]

Deep in the Saharan desert in the country of Niger lies Agadez, a city that is known for its mysterious desert rock music. After many years playing weddings and other gigs throughout Agadez, Etran De L’Aïr has caught fire internationally and now spends much of their time bringing their Saharan rock to increasingly larger audiences […]

Last month, prolific journeyman rocker and Hüsker Dü member Bob Mould released his fifteen solo album Here We Go Crazy. This is his first new album in five years and one that finds him embracing more of a guitar-pop sound, marking a slight but welcome departure from his punk roots. Just a couple of weeks […]

Reed Turchi, the Brooklyn-based musician, producer, and poet announces his new record World On Fire, a collection of vintage blues and spiritual tunes Turchi picked up along the way on his circuitous route through the music industry. Some of the songs are traditional with no documented authors, others performed by so many artists with so […]

Among the handful of Australian bands that have taken the world by storm in the last several years, few have grabbed the attention of such a diverse range of music fans as Amyl and the Sniffers. Fronted by the brash vocalist Amy Taylor, the band has exploded as they have evolved from their gritty early […]