For writer and teacher Jenny Lumet, this has been a long time coming. Her first screenplay to be made into a film, the Jonathan Demme-directed Rachel Getting Married, has made waves in the movie world, something that Lumet, daughter of Academy Award-winning director Sidney Lumet, didn’t necessarily see coming, but has enjoyed.
Everyone makes their standard "best of's," top 10s" and "year in review" lists, but each December we like to take that model a couple of steps further. We go straight to the artists to see where they found inspiration over the past twelve months, and we don't stop with just album choices. We dig a bit deeper and go for a broader picture of the past year in art. From classic moments on the road to their guilty pleasure confessions, this is a panoramic snapshot of "the best of 2008," and a peek into what to expect in '09.
Golden Animals aren’t your typical California by way of Brooklyn duo. With a sound that’s more reminiscent of The Doors than Television, the duo comprised of Tommy Eisner and Linda Beecroft released their full-length debut (Free Your Mind and Win a Pony) earlier this year and have been opening their ears with their “groovy blues” sound.
Do records even matter anymore? The whole concept of listening to an album from beginning to end – a continuous journey ala Dark Side of the Moon or London Calling? Yup, despite the decline in physical sales and the current climate – both brick and mortar and digital – for some the album is still an art-form to be fully digested, and 2008 had a ton of main courses. It’s always easier to hear a few seconds of a track on MySpace or download a few tracks from iTunes, but these records deserve to be listened to from beginning to end – one, two, three or dozens of times.
Musical collaboration among pre-established units is tricky business, and it's rare to arrive at that special level: the place where you find a meeting of minds so potent that a union of two or more styles, eras, backgrounds, or whatever else becomes a whole and not just co-working parts. To that special category you'd definitely have to add Donna Jean & the Tricksters.
Jessie Baylin's Verve Records debut, Firesight, has garnered attention across the nation, making her a musician to watch over the coming years. Calling it a “collection of a bunch of moments in my life,” Firesight is really more than that – songs like “See How I Run,” “Leave Your Mark,” and “Was I on Your Mind?” reveal a blossoming songwriter just scratching the surface of what the 24-year-old can offer.
It happens to most pantheon-worthy sidemen eventually; there are no hard and fast rules for these things. But it's still a bit of a shocker that Lifeboat, out this month and one of the best albums of 2008, is Jimmy Herring's first proper solo effort. It's yet another side of a remarkably inventive guitarist shaped by his experiences in everything from Aquarium Rescue Unit and Jazz is Dead to Phil Lesh & Friends and Widespread Panic.
You might remember Madeline Zima as Emma in 1992’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, but that’s now light years away from what she is now – a versatile actress who’s willing to try anything to make a character’s life seem as real as possible. Glide was fortunate enough to talk with Zima about playing the guitar, acting and her role in Californication.
Only one year after their self-released album, Never Trying To Catch Up (2004), the Austin natives opened for Franz Ferdinand on the PBS series Austin City Limits, making them one of the only unsigned bands ever to play for the show. Creating quite a bit of a buzz, WMMF continued riding the wave with performances at the ACL Festival, South by Southwest and Lollapalooza.
With The Nate Wilson Group’s debut release Unbound, Wilson has woven his musical influences into something original yet cohesively familiar. Fom the opening raunchy guitar chords on “Hear The Echoes,” the band appears to have more in kinship to The White Stripes and James Gang, where the swirling mellotron flourishes echo Pink Floyd and Wilson’s soft vocals reflect an edgier Paul Simon.
