Posts by Steve Ovadia

Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers were more than just a nameless backing band. Sure, the individual members might not have been household names, but the essence of the band, keyboardist Benmont Tench; bassist Ron Blair, who left the band in 1982, returning in 2003 after Howie Epstein died; and, of course, guitarist Mike Campbell; was known to […]

Mark Lanegan’s Straight Songs of Sorrow, lives up to its title, a harrowing—and riveting—journey through the singer/songwriter’s life, and a companion piece to his memoir, Sing Backwards And Weep. You don’t need to have read the book to appreciate the honesty of the album, which makes a compelling argument for Lanegan as a contemporary Lead […]

The challenge of writing about what makes Heather Anne Lomax’s All This Time so good is that her recipe is so simple. She has a huge voice, great songs, and unadorned production. But there’s nothing basic about this beautiful album which is built upon perfect performances that don’t waste a note, while also making you […]

The MTV Unplugged TV show debuted about a year before Tesla’s Five Man Acoustical Jam album, so it’s technically unfair to give Tesla credit for kicking off the 1990s unplugged phenomenon, but Tesla’s chart-topping live acoustic album demonstrated the potential of the unplugged format, if a band was willing to reconsider its catalog in a […]

The apocryphal story about the Ramones is that their 1977 tour of England left a wake of new bands, with hundreds, if not thousands, of English kids seeing the pride of Queens, New York and thinking ‘I could and should do that.’ Tom Petty’s legacy is similar. At first glance, he made it seem like […]

The joke of the title of Ozzy Osbourne’s Ordinary Man, his 12th solo album, and first in almost a decade, is that there’s nothing ordinary about the 71-year-old metal icon. And it’s true. Who else could release an album featuring Elton John, Slash and Travis Scott? But the title also speaks to Osbourne’s accessibility. Sure […]

The idea of Americana was always built on a false premise: that 21st century, or, for that matter, 20th century, music could be constrained by physical geography. On In This Town You’re Owned, Liverpool’s Robert Vincent has crafted a beautiful piece of Americana, with the trademark fiddles and plaintive acoustic strums, but also with an […]

At the risk of sounding lazy, life is so much easier when an album title perfectly describes the work. The Cadillac Three’s Country Fuzz precisely captures the delightfully ragged album, which soaks a straight-forward country in a tub full of distortion, creating music that will delight metal heads and line dancers, both groups previously only […]

One may have two very specific musical impressions of G. Love. One is “Cold Beverage,” the hip-hop single off of his 1994 self-titled debut, made with his band, Special Sauce. Between the ode to drinking and Beck-esque marriage of folk and rap, there was nothing to dislike about the song, which is what it might […]

One might be forgiven for passing on an album of 90s indie rock covers launched by a 90s indie rock icon, the act feeling too recursively throwback to many. But not for your humble correspondent as Quarter Century Classix (New West) nails its mission. While Ben Lee, the aforementioned icon, is under-appreciated, and perhaps best known […]

Scott H. Biram is a one-man band, handling vocals, guitar, drums, and harmonica. His persona is that of mad religious cult leader, songs often equal parts rock and roll and testifying. The image is aided by his surviving a head-on wreck with an 18-wheeler, returning to the stage a month later, giving him a supernatural […]

Lots of bands pay tribute to the music of the 1950s and 60s. It’s not a hard thing to list or mention your influences. The challenge is in actually nailing the sound. If you’re too faithful, you sound like a cover band. If you’re too progressive, the spirit of the original is lost. And that’s […]

The video for Mark Lanegan Band’s “Stitch It Up,” off Somebody’s Knocking features Jimmy the Cab Driver. Jimmy, played by Donal Logue (before he was famous), was an MTV fixture in the 1990s, performing meandering monologues about the various bands showcased by the music network. One of those MTV-anointed bands was Lanegan’s Screaming Trees, which […]

Stephen Clair’s Strange Perfume is a perfect homage to 1970s garage rock. Think in terms of the Modern Lovers or if David Bowie had gotten a crack at producing the Velvet Underground. The major thing separating Clair from those artists, and artists like them is the joy within his music. While there’s emotional complexity and […]

The assumption about Elvis Presley has always been that, had he lived, he probably would have continued making music along the lines of what he had already made. So maybe he would have gone back to his rockabilly roots, as he did on the ’68 Comeback Special. Or maybe he would have doubled-down on the […]

The book on sacred steel legend Robert Randolph has always been that his music is more on the secular side of the aisle than the religious, but on Brighter Days, there’s plenty of incredible music—gospel, rock, and otherwise—that’ll pretty much keep everybody happy, and bowing their heads in gratitude. Sacred steel refers to the electric […]

Part of being a true Van Halen fan is always feeling the band never gets its due. Sure, people rave about Eddie Van Halen’s guitar playing. And I’ve never met someone without an opinion about David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar. The band has sold tons of albums, but does anyone respect them as songwriters? […]

The draw of the lo-fi, garage-rock influenced bands of the late 90s (White Stripes) and early aughts (The Black Keys), was the energy they created using sparse instrumentation—just guitar, drums, and vocals. It was an antidote to the funereal bombast of grunge. However, both bands quickly discovered the limitations of the format, and gradually expanded […]

Duff McKagan, best known as the bass player for Guns N’ Roses, was considered the punk voice within the band, giving their songs a harder edge, in addition to his sublimely melodic bass playing. However, on Tenderness, working closely with country singer/songwriter Shooter Jennings, McKagan has crafted a contemporary, politically aware American version of the […]

Bear’s Den began as a three-person folk-rock band in the vein of Mumford and Sons. Their debut, Islands, featured lots of banjo and acoustic guitar. Their follow-up, 2016’s Red Earth & Pouring Rain, which had the band now a duo (after the departure of banjoist Joey Haynes), pushed them in more of a rock direction, […]