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We’re down at Langerado this weekend, where we should have been seeing Vampire Weekend right about now. Of course the afro-pop specialists are in NYC preparing for tomorrow night’s episode

“I swear, if I new it was going to be this good, I would have broken down and dropped mescaline!” – Paul Rappaport via Lefsetz

Monday night at the Bowery Ballroom saw two of the more publicized up and coming youngsters in music split a bill in Johnathan Rice and Matt Costa. Both Costa and Rice are associated with the indie music scene, but neither really fit the categorization in either a musical sense or a commercial sense. Both of these artists, while drastically different musically are capable of some serious mass appeal and are touring in front of a wave of major label support, Costa with Universal and Rice with Warner Brothers. The night was an easy sellout and then some and both Rice and Costa clearly had a solid number of fans in attendance.

I remember the first time I saw Matt Costa perform, thinking to myself, “If I had a record label, this might be the first musician I would try to sign.” Perhaps more apropos today would be, “If I were one of these private equity, Wall Street guys interested in running a record label, I would start loading up on high yield debt to prepare for a Matt Costa hostile takeover.”

Regardless, the Matt Costa story is pretty straightforward. It’s pretty much come time for Costa to decide how big he wants to become. Costa and his band are airtight and it is clear that his fan base of Costasheads is growing quickly. For good reason, Costa doesn’t have a bad song in the repertoire and can weave in and out of more solemn ballads and rocking crowd pleasers with ease. Read on for more…

While this summer is overloaded with music festivals, there is one festival to promises bands that you won’t be seeing at the rest – since most of the acts playing

One of the bright spots of 2007 in the blog world was when Sleater-Kinney’s Carrie Brownstein started Monitor Mix for NPR. Brownstein offers insightful looks at the music world on

One of the cooler venues near my hometown is the historic Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey. The Count Basie offers the only chance Bayshore residents have to

While I travel down to Langerado our good friend Sleepy Floyd will keep you occupied with an extra super special edition of The B List:

March 10th will see the evening that Leonard Cohen, the Dave Clark Five, Madonna,John Mellencamp, the Ventures, Little Walter and Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff get inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame. Who you might ask? Yes, Little Walter, Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff.

Each year there are a few Burt Blylevens in the bunch, artists who contributions to rock and roll are indistinguishable, yet their credentials are always a “bat decapitation via the mouth” or a lengthy “2112/Overture/Temples of Syrinx” from being considered rock and roll royalty.

According to the Hall’s website to be nominated as a performer…

Artists become eligible for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Criteria include the influence and significance of the artists’ contributions to the development and perpetuation of rock and roll. The Foundation’s nominating committee, composed of rock and roll historians, selects nominees each year in the Performer category. Ballots are then sent to an international voting body of more than 500 rock experts. Those performers who receive the highest number of votes – and more than 50 percent of the vote – are inducted. The Foundation generally inducts five to seven performers each year.

So, forget the Clive Davis’ and the Grammy Award stuffy music industry crowd, who defines rock and roll immortality strictly be album sales. Here we go with Glide/Hidden Track’s Ten most overlooked eligible artists for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Read on to find out which bands made Sleepy Floyd’s list…

We’ve all come to love those befuddling, obscure album referencing reviews from the folks at Pitchfork – you know the ones that reference things like 1980s Italian New Wave B-Sides.

Reunion-mania may have hit a fever pitch in ’07, but indie-rock fans got a glimmer of hope that 2009 may be a big year for them when former Pavement guitarist