Posts by Shane Handler

While there’s no misunderstanding why The Mommyheads chose the title Age of Isolation for their second album in two years. It’s also no surprise the band still sounds as creatively charismatic as we’ve come to expect from this experienced NYC four-piece. The band led by the hooking and idiosyncratic vocals of Adam Elk, maintains an […]

It’s so tough to pin down what Sierra Ferrell musically sounds like as her songbook is as nomadic as her true story. After years of living in her van and busking on the streets of New Orleans and Seattle, Ferrell moved to Nashville and started landing gigs around town. Soon enough, her magnetic live show […]

Ghosts of Jupiters’ third LP Keepers of the Newborn Green explores the Boston area band’s song growth from the organ and guitar-based space rock to British pastoral prog. Where the guitar rock/organ-oriented shades of Traffic and Jeff Beck Group showed in the band’s earlier work, Ghosts of Jupiter have progressed into a storybook setting where […]

“It’s nice they didn’t notice I stole this guitar,” said an in jest Haley Heynderickx two songs into her 30-minute opening set for The Milk Carton Kids at Phoenix’s Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) on Friday, August 27th. Heynderickx probably echoed the thoughts of almost every musician that hits MIM on its tour route, where a […]

It appears lately that everyone is coming out of hiding to gather and engage in customs we previously took for granted. For NYC-based Mommyheads, who has been making music on and off since 1987, that last 13 months not only saw them avoid performing together but also saw the release of one of its most […]

Cari Hutson probably never fully envisioned her first “true properly released” album would be an EP, but hey that’s just sometimes the way things happen in the music biz. After all quite a few successful bands have had debut EPs that set the course of their career: Kings of Leon, R.E.M., and Coldplay to name […]

Over the course of the storied rock band AC/DC’s 45 plus year discography, there are two things you can expect with each album: no ballads and a song with the word “rock” in the title. Sure the AC/DC formula is scripted and predictable, but at this point in the game do fans want anything different? […]

In the last week, we’ve been mourning the loss of guitar hero Eddie Van Halen who passed away last Tuesday, October 6th at the age of 65. Through the numerous tributes and lists posted online, we all know what Eddie offered the world in terms of guitar pyrotechnics. By now you’ve seen numerous photos of […]

Frontman/guitarist Andrew Nelson of Nashville based Great Peacock certainly tells it like it is when describing the inspiration behind the band’s third album Forever Worse Better (released 10/9). “We’re struggling to find success, and I want people to know we’re struggling, just like they are. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, though, […]

The creatively admired Canadian label Arts & Crafts is home to many a renowned band- including Broken Social Scene, Stars, and Andy Shauf. The eight-piece Montreal jazz/funk collective, Busty & The Bass is bringing a retro-flavored soulful blast to the Arts & Crafts label with their recently released new LP Eddie, a well-needed spoonful of […]

Vermont musician Dustin Glass follows up his debut 2018 album Canvas with an impressive collection of original instrumental compositions on ‘The Space Between’. Recorded in Glass’s home studio, The Space Between features a rawness to the sound that seems to work well for this collection of tunes. Glass handled all the guitar, bass, keyboard duties, […]

Blue on Blue, the new album by renowned singer, writer and ukulele-player Sylvie Simmons might be her second release but it hasn’t put her in in cruise control by any means. As an accomplished music journalist who has written biographies on Serge Gainsbourg, Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, and had the privilege of documenting Johnny Cash’s last […]

Alternative pop singer-songwriter Victoria Reed’s new album Aquamadre, the long-awaited follow-up to her debut record Chariot is out on April 24th via Fisica Moderna Records/ AWAL. Where her 2016 debut drew inspiration from the Tarot, ‘Aquamadre’ is an astrologically-charged reflection on the sign of Aquarius. There is an “it” factor that conjures shades of Fiona […]

It’s been a week like none other in the music industry with the constant C-word taking over people’s lives, fears and concerns and causing cancellations including this week’s SXSW. But it was business as usual for Phoenix’s M3F Festival which took place in downtown Phoenix March 6-8, 2020 at Margaret Hance Park.  The festival has […]

Dan Rosenboom, a musician at the forefront of Los Angeles’ ever-thriving creative music scene, boasts an international reputation for boundary-pushing projects and relentless productivity. A trumpet virtuoso equally at home in improvised and classical music, Rosenboom returns with his new album Absurd in the Anthropocene out on January 31, 2020 via Gearbox Records. Absurd in the Anthropocene is loaded […]

In what has already been considered by many to be the most questionable reunion in quite some time,- The Black Crowes have reunited for a 2020 Live Nation-promoted summer tour, playing their 1990 debut album Shake Your Money Maker in its entirety to 20k sheds and arenas across the states. While its a stretch to […]

Dave Hollier of King Ropes very much knows his way around rock’s past and present, always referencing the past but somehow incorporating shades of genre-pushing boundaries into his stellar but vastly under-appreciated rock outfit King Ropes. His new album Gravity and Friction, (released 7/26) deals in “contrasting attitudes and tonalities, reveling in the process of discovering the […]

There are certain collaborations that are just meant to be: Tom Petty/Stevie Nicks, Queen/David Bowie and perhaps some that aren’t (ie Metallica/Lou Reed). Place Calexico and Iron & Wine in the former. It’s been 14 years since the Tucson based band led by Joey Burns and John Convertino joined forces with a then-burgeoning Sam Beam […]

When Hershey, Pennsylvania’s The Ocean Blue arrived with their self titled debut in 1989, and dead ringer British modern rock sound- perhaps they were a few years late to the party? Despite the polished formula on this debut that contained Echo and the Bunnymen references amongst standout songs -“Between Something And Nothing” and the sax-laden […]

“No way a nostalgic act”- that would be the words to coin the irrepressible Joe Jackson, a man who is performing on the heels of his 40th-anniversary tour. Jackson made his way to Phoenix’s classic Orpheum Theater on March 9th, the last U.S. stop of the first leg of his recent Four-Decade Tour. Touring in support […]