Posts by Ric Hickey

Shooter fearlessly confronts the duality of man’s nature. Can Saturday night and Sunday morning learn to live side by side? Directly quoting one of his father’s songs, he asks, “Don’t y’all think this ‘outlaw’ bit done got outta hand?” As a lens through which to view and contemplate the finer points of man’s perplexing nature, The Other Life is not just Shooter’s birthright but a surprisingly fertile platform for hard-won philosophical insights.

Like a pirate winking behind his eye patch, it’s hard to tell when Robyn Hitchcock is pulling your leg. Over the course of a career spanning nearly four decades, this visionary Brit wit has carved out a musical path that is purely unique. His work exists in a realm all its own, largely defying comparison to any other songwriter’s work.

Black Country Communion is a hard rock super group whose sound is far more than the sum of its collective chops and they put the “eyebrows” on every track on Afterglow, their fantastic third album. Whoever it was that said “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” hasn’t heard Black Country Communion. Their pedigree alone qualifies them for some kind of exalted status.

Lookin' Fine On Television opens with an endearing interview excerpt from so early in the Dolls’ storied career that they seem like a fresh-faced band of brothers doing their best imitation of Rock Stars.

Joe Henry is the perfect storm of singer/songwriter/producer. Right out of the box, the singular sound of his production is always striking. Not unlike Lanois’ Wall Of Murk, Henry’s work invariably consists of stark layers of gentle noise, undulating blocks of sound, instruments alternately lurching into and jutting out of the arrangements, and elusive lyrical abstractions representing the darkest reaches of the emotional spectrum. These multiple layers of organic sound are sparse and simple, quietly going about their business holding up Henry’s soulful songs of Reverie.

There are certainly some excellent concert performances included here but thanks to some ill-advised and overlong interview segments, the overall presentation comes across as pompous and self-important.

Tom Waits On Tom Waits brings together a large number of interviews conducted throughout the great man’s storied career. Covering a remarkable 35-year span from 1973 to 2008, this collection employs Waits’ own words to paint a vivid self portrait of a highly original American artist and iconoclast. The book makes for a very intriguing chronology of Waits’ development as a songwriter, recording artist and performer. Fiercely protective of his private life and notoriously reclusive, Waits nonetheless has always been a lively and unpredictable interview subject.

Two years after Crazy Heart’s release, one gets the impression that Bridges got a taste of the Bad Blake character and liked it too much to let it go. That said, it’s also easy to picture Bridges standing outside the recording studio like a painter in front of a blank canvas, determined to create something that’s never been done before. Likely to be embraced by the alt-Country ccmmunity and college radio, let’s hope this is the first of many records like this from Jeff Bridges.

Dancing Barefoot recalls many events that may already be familiar to fans of Smith’s career and readers of NYC music history. But the author does bring a deeper insight to the artist’s motivations and a great deal of much-needed perspective on the era in which she blossomed.

The first in a series of EP releases, Pro*Whoa! finds Nikka Costa cooing and screeching over six freaky funk tracks reminiscent of Prince and Stevie Wonder.

A collection of old rhythm & blues and rockabilly tunes lovingly re-made by the likes of Wyman, Charlie Watts, Andy Fairweather-Low, Kenney Jones, Jimmy Page, Paul Rodgers and others, it was warmly received at the time of its release and holds up surprisingly well to this day.

Phair's new Funstyle CD is a weird accomplishment. It’s pure fluff. But because it comes from our darling Liz I wonder if we don’t reflexively apply an extra measure of serious scrutiny to it than we might for a new record by Christina Aguilera or Kylie Minogue

On a recent stop in Cincinnati, Jeff Beck and his band blazed through a mostly instrumental performance that alternated mind-numbing rockers with glistening ballads. This career retrospective crash course at times seemed like it was maybe a little too heavy on the sweet ballads. But honestly the rockers were so intense that these softer tunes may have been placed strategically throughout the set just to allow the stunned audience to catch their breath.

After having played two smokin’ sets at Bonnaroo for their record-breaking sixth appearance. Glide recently caught up with Umphrey’s singer-guitarist Brendan Bayliss right before he and Jeff Austin (band mate in side project 30db) had the honor of singing the National Anthem at Wrigley Field.

In the music world it seems the younger artists always get the lion’s share of attention on the summer festival circuit. So it’s nice to see a few of the older acts at this year’s Bonnaroo get some well-deserved attention: John Fogerty, Jeff Beck, John Prine, Kris Kristofferson, Jimmy Cliff and Stevie Wonder

It was around 2pm last Friday when a huge crowd began to gather around Bonnaroo’s Other Tent. As the happy mob swelled and overflowed onto the grassy hillside surrounding the stage it became irrefutably clear that Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros were on a lot of people’s must-see list at this year’s Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. At 2:30 the enthusiastic crowd welcomed the group to the stage, saving the largest measure of their applause for the appearance of singer Alex Ebert.