Posts by Neil Ferguson

If music festivals were gauged strictly on the quality of the community they create and the attention to creating an ideal experience for all, UTOPiAfest would be the most successful by a longshot. Plenty of festivals claim to focus on giving attendees a truly special experience when in fact they are using the event as […]

Photo: David Gilliver Marta Pacek has had an interesting journey. The singer grew up just outside the Australian capital of Canberra but her passion for making music quickly drove her to start a globe-trotting journey that eventually led her to Canada where she had been discovered and taken on by her Toronto-based management. Her alt-country […]

Photo by Arthur VanRooy.  Motörhead are celebrating their 40th anniversary this year, but so far things have not been going so well on their North American tour. At a show in Salt Lake City this past Thursday, frontman Lemmy Kilmister walked off stage just a few songs in, blaming his feelings of “sickness” on the […]

When Gary Clark Jr. first played the esteemed Austin City Limits show back in 2012, he had something to prove. His major label debut, Blak and Blu, had been released not long before the appearance and he was playing in front of a hometown crowd on the same show that had exposed the world to […]

Any business that stays open for over fifty years safely earns the status of being an institution. Any record store that stays in business for this long earns the status of hero. Nestled between Summit Ski & Sport and the Bow Tie Beacon Cinema along the store-lined Springfield Ave in Summit, New Jersey, Scotti’s Record […]

Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey (JFJO) has always been one of the more intriguing acts within the improvisational music scene and beyond. Led by the eclectic pianist and composer Brian Haas, the group has been anything but static as they have rotated through numerous members and sounds over the course of twenty-one years and twenty-seven albums. […]

Being a one-man band is not easy. Touring silo and keeping your sound both original and exciting are just some of the challenges faced by the one-man band. Plenty of these acts have come along over the years only to fizzle out or eventually enlist the help of other musicians to expand into a full […]

Singer-songwriter Adam Zwig was on tour supporting his sixth studio album Stones, Bones, and Skin when he felt something happening. Each night there he was experiencing that symbiotic interaction of energy and emotion between the band and its audience. This is the kind of thing musicians and their fans seek to tap into at every show, or […]

[rating=8.00] In a lengthy letter to his fans, Brent Best explains why it took him five years to complete his solo album. He reflects on the hard times and real life shit that led to his project, as well as others, being moved to the backburner. He recounts too many different circumstances to talk about in […]

It’s been an interesting year for one of heavy metal’s biggest bands. The members of Iron Maiden had just finished production of their 16th studio album in Paris at the end of 2014 when the band’s frontman Bruce Dickinson felt that something wasn’t right. A visit with his doctor confirmed that Dickinson had a cancerous […]

I have a confession to make: I live in Austin and somehow I’ve never managed to see The Bellfuries perform live. This is something I’m actually a little ashamed about since they are one of this town’s most talented groups, and have become one of my favorites since first hearing them. Plus, they play all […]

[rating=8.00] Jason Isbell is treated like a savior these days because he is one of the few artists actually doing original, well-written songs within the spectrum of country and rock. It’s hard to disagree with the adoration he receives as he is an incredible talent, but it is worth noting that Isbell’s approach to Americana […]

Is there such a thing as “Alaskan music”? If you’re like me you might think of a cliché image of the flannel-clad lumberjack, corn cob pipe dangling from his bearded face, sitting on the porch of a log cabin noodling on some sort of acoustic instrument while singing songs about chopping wood and digging for […]

Listen to the 3rd studio album from The White Buffalo, which drops August 21st via Unison Music Group, and you will hear an artist ready to take the world by storm. Love and the Death of Damnation is country, rock, folk, and so much more, but most importantly it is the singer-songwriter Jake Smith at the absolute […]

These days festivals tend to pop up like weeds from a cracked sidewalk. There are too many and the majority aren’t good. But every so often a flower grows from that old beaten up sidewalk, and one of the flowers amongst the weeds in this year’s festival roster is the first ever Pilgrimage Festival. Taking […]

A lot can happen in 16 years. For a band this amount of time can mean huge changes and even demise. But since 1999 guitarist and singer Max Fender and bassist Joey Beck have been rocking basements and bars across the Midwest as Alone At 3AM. The band’s lineup has changed plenty of times over […]

If Holly Golightly’s name sounds familiar it’s because she was named after the main character in Truman Capote’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s. You know, the iconic character played by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film adaption? But Holly Golightly’s name should also be familiar because of a career in music that goes back to the early 90s […]

For just about a decade Bradenton, Florida band Have Gun, Will Travel have been making music that can’t be put in a box. It has often been easiest for critics to just call them an alt. country band, and there are good enough reasons for that. But, whether it be pop-infused choruses or personal, soul-baring […]

Despite temperatures pushing nearly a hundred, a steady breeze cooled the crowd who gradually made their way in the Austin360 Amphitheater to catch Steely Dan with a half opening, half co-headlining set from Elvis Costello. Dapper as always, the Englishman seemed unphased by the heat as he took the stage clad in a black suit. […]

Ever since the 2012 film Searching For Sugar Man placed a spotlight on the strange life and career of the elusive folk singer Rodriguez, there seems to be renewed attention from music lovers when it comes to discovering musicians who may have possessed incredible talent but somehow managed to disappear from the public eye. The […]