Blogs, NPR, The New York Times have all been singing the praises of Philly’s Dr. Dog and now they have some hard evidence. We All Belong is one of the 2007’s strongest releases, combining tight arraignments with picturesque vocals and a lazy fall afternoon BBQ vibe; Dr. Dog has crafted a winner to go along with their energetic live show.
This January, ten years after their first effort, the brainy indie-pop group Of Montreal released Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? to critical acclaim and the biggest audience of their career. The album is intensely confessional and sometimes cringingly direct, dealing with front man Kevin Barnes’ split from his wife (they eventually got back together) and his isolation in Norway, where he lived while making part of the album.
The spirit of Aqualung lives in a complex songsmith whose moody music he equates with both the underwater world and celestial space. His name is Matt Hales – singer/songwriter, pianist and multi-instrumentalist. A mastermind at mesmerizing us – first with his 2005 debut album in the U.S., Strange & Beautiful and now with the eagerly awaited successor, Memory Man.
Listen to enough Bobby Bare Jr., and you start craving the stuff whenever you're in need of a little peace of mind. It's not that he makes music that's necessarily peaceful, just that he's arrived at a cross section of pie-eyed quirk, country musicianship, rocker dynamics and loveably dirty, unburnished romance that's particularly agreeable on any kind of day.
Following a series of extensive cross-country tours that have put them in front of big crowds at major festivals like Bonnaroo, Langerado and Wakarusa, Steel Train has been making "serious tracks.”
For Patty Griffin, praise hasn’t been the problem. The man who discovered her, John Curtis, after hearing her sing for the first time, remembered having “no doubt, no doubt at all.” Dave Matthews, who proudly supports Griffin on ATO Records, the label he founded, “can't think of a more beautiful singer and a better songwriter alive today.” Steve Earle suspects that Patty’s songs “make most people a little uncomfortable–like they've just walked in on a private moment in someone else's life and they know they should turn around and tiptoe away, but they can't. They make me jealous."
For moe., 2006 was a killer year. Sure, they played and ran their own festivals, including the annual moe.down and snoe.down, as well as the second sailing of the moe.cruise. And of course they took on their typically strong touring schedule, but all of that is normal for moe. No, it was a killer year because while it was full of accomplishments, it could have killed them in the process.
Richard Patrick, the man at the forefront of the rock band Filter for the past ten years has enlisted with bassist Robert DeLeo and guitarist Dean DeLeo –the brothers and musical architects behind Stone Temple Pilots. Add veteran drummer Ray Luzier, formerly of the David Lee Roth band and you have Army of Anyone. Together, the sum is even greater than its parts and the proof is in their self-titled debut album.
he members of Rose Hill Drive are young, but don’t let their age fool you. This power trio of throwback rock and roll has enough rock star experience to fill four trips to Europe, while opening for Van Halen, the Black Crowes, and Queens of the Stone Age. The trio will embark soon on their sophomore stint of opening for legendary rockers The Who, traipsing from the west coast to the East, after headlining their own tour in the UK and Amsterdam.
Every film has a season and February 2007 is the season for films that document the life of a band, with narrative pictures like Half-Cocked and Radiation made by filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley being released on their Brooklyn based Rumur imprint.
