Posts by Shane Handler

Toying from the past and fine tuning with the present, Gary Jules makes Trading Snakeoil For Wolftickets, an all-around winning work of songwriting and arranging that should not be missed.

Night of Joy is the first of three new live albums to be released by Widespread Panic over the couse of 2004, a year in which the hardworking band is taking their first break in 18 years. This release stars the The Dirty Dozen Brass Brand on horns and rhythm and features some new and old Panic favorites.

Greendale, Young

Drummer Mickey Jones looks back on his early music years in World Tour 1966 The Home Movies. With a gathering of personal footage, he shares his own 8mm color home movies back from an era when he got the chance of a lifetime

After touring Australia together as solo artists in the early 2003 Bens Tour; Kweller, Folds, and Lee put together this ditty of four quick, pop shiny numbers that follow with distinction, yet leave with desire.

Upon releasing their strongest effort to date, and holding a coveted lineup spot for the upcoming eclectic Coachella Festival, Phantom Planet is allowing their ghoulish name and brash music to speak for itself.

For a six-piece band that confidently concurs they can

Since their formation in 1986, Big Head Todd & the Monsters have been living steadfastly on their diet of rock and roll, served with

The only promise these tunes can deliver is one for the cult lavish, who enjoy their music on the dirty and dark side. It’s been said the Liars frenzied live performances are quite the catch on the New York scene, so hopefully that energy is a bit more cohesive than the one preserved on record.

Just 72 hours prior to Robert Randolph and the Family Band

Singer-songwriter Teitur’s Universal Records debut, Poetry & Aeroplanes, is an eleven-song collection of delicate tunes that reveal the inner troubadour in all of us. Songs about travelling, waiting, post cards, and telephone conversations, dwell up cinemagraphic feelings of longing, regret and adventure.

By the standards of anyone, guitarist Earl Slick has lived a rock and roll fantasy camp over his 30+ year musical career. While his name doesn

Transit’s sound is a crunchy testament to a time of simplicity, attaining the essence of improvisational originality, while capturing the moment’s true conscience – both the sunny and dark. It is this electric telepathy between the trio on stage that enables Transit to deliver this gritty passage of raw emotion that reflects in their cozy, coffeehouse stage settings.

Working on solo projects outside a touring band has become commonplace, but recording and touring with two bands above and beyond a solo career is a rarity. The unassuming focal point of a small, simmering music scene in Boston, keyboardist/composer Neil Larson is usually found bringing the synth-madness to Amun Ra and moonlighting with Nikulydin, but has somehow managed to keep his day job as solo artist, Dr Nigel.

Teitur, a self-professed troubadour from Denmark’s Faroe Islands is a songwriter first and foremost, as he manages to blend voice and poetry into a polished acoustic realm – think Badly Drawn Boy or Coldplay with a splash less rock and roll. But it’s his acoustic confessional lyrics, with a knack for gentle pop harmonies that make Poetry and Aeroplanes, a collection of twelve stark confessional pangs, a cozy listen.

As My Morning Jacket took the stage and opened with the Latin sounding “Mahgeeta,” the band’s distinctive sound -led by James’ howl- made an immediate dent. As the five-piece carved into additional songs from It Still Moves, it became clear, that unlike the pre-mentioned LP, which takes numerous spins to “get,” the live electricity set by My Morning Jacket makes them a simpler catch in person.

With the unbearable wind-chills and sub-zero temps, this year’s northeast ski season has been less than legendary. There have been some large storms, and snowfalls have been reported steady at various resorts, but lately, braving the cold has been a far greater challenge than the terrain.

With a mix of instrumentals and compositions featuring guest vocalists, the album has two distinct feels – one of vital rock and one of 80’s throwback. But it’s the strong guest vocal numbers, such as David Bowie’s spectral croon on “Isn’t It Evening,” adding a mysterious aura over Slicks’s subtle guitar fades that provides us with a handful of ripe moments.

Joss Stone may only be 16 years old, but with radiating pipes that can jump start a dead battery in the dead of winter, age is a mere afterthought on her debut – The Soul Sessions. Displaying the explosive anguish of Aretha Franklin, this young blonde from the Southwest of England surely hits the sweet spot, while taking the listener back to the early 70s’ era of Motown and adding her own 21st century spin.

Not to be confused with its soundtrack follow up The September Sessions, Thicker Than Water serves as Jack Johnson’s coming out party – as filmmaker and musician. Although the film is defined as a collection of images and memories hauled in for an eighteen month journey through the North Atlantic, South Pacific and the Bay of Bengal; Johnson’s music plays a small part in this compilation featuring ten different artists.