Interviews

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when most people have been sticking close to their home turf, Mark Lanegan has actually done the opposite: last year, he moved to the other side of the world, from California to Ireland. During a recent call, he says he did this for a “change of scenery.” He finds that his […]

North Carolina-based alternative band The Collection has been releasing a steady stream of singles in the past year and building towards a new album with more Pop directions woven into their Roots-inspired background. Their summer 2021 single, “Loud,” took a careful look at why and how we should be motivated to speak up and get […]

It may come as a surprise but Gov’t Mule has never released an album devoted strictly to the blues. It’s not that they’ve ignored the genre, not by a long shot. It’s just they’ve stirred the blues so well into the music they make, you’ve naturally associated their sound with having all those great assets […]

Hayes Carll has come a long way from his days entertaining frat boys and sorority girls at beer joints around Texas. For the better part of two decades, he has been carefully refining his skills as a singer-songwriter to emerge as one of the greats of this generation. With each album, Carll has increasingly demonstrated […]

The prolific singer-songwriter Christian Lopez released his new album The Other Side on October 8th, though you most likely have seen his many singles and videos rolling out over the course of the year, gearing up for all 12 songs to land. Along with them have come no fewer than seven poignant, and at times, […]

It’s not easy to find the bright side of the recent global pandemic. Sure, collectively as a society we were finally cool with gaining weight, day drinking and streaming TV shows night and day. And the punk/hard rock/Country world finally got a decent Supergroup out of it. Supersuckers and Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs frontmen Eddie Spaghetti and […]

New York-based Hard Rock band Station is building on their atmospheric Stained Glass EP with the release of new LP Perspective, released October 8th by AWAL. With it, Station delves further into aesthetic elements associated with 80s and 90s Hard Rock bands, but also doesn’t shy away from softer ballad styles while keeping up a […]

Al Staehely is best known as vocalist, bass player, and main songwriter on the band Spirit’s fifth album, Feedback, which was released in 1972, and also for his subsequent bands The Staehely Brothers and The Nick Gravenites / John Cipollina Band. As a songwriter, his works were also recorded Keith Moon, Bobbie Gentry, Patti Dahlstrom, Nick Gravenites, John […]

Texan songwriter and musician Ariel Hartley regularly tours with her all-female band Pearl Earl, and they are currently working on a new album, but over recent years, Hartley has crafted some songs that seemed to develop in directions that had a different tone to them. Filing them away for potential development, Hartley eventually jumped into […]

If singer/songwriter Andrew Duhon hasn’t shown up on your playlists yet, make a point of adding him now. His three full-length albums and one EP are full of so many stunning songs that you’ll have plenty to choose from. Duhon writes songs with an everyman-literary touch. Sometimes his songwriting makes me think of fishing—he gently […]

Lady of the Manor is the kind of lighthearted comedy romp harkening back to the slightly more carefree days of 80’s summer cinema. It stars Melanie Lynskey as Hannah, a part-time weed dealer/full-time stoner who ends up in one of those classic comedy sendups: losing everything important to you in the span of a few […]

Frank Migliorelli and The Dirt Nappers found inspiration for their new project in bright colors, and fantastical worlds…all captured in the pages of well-worn library favorites. The project combines original songs and videos that celebrate much-loved children’s stories, a few of which are almost 100 years old. Migliorelli had thought about producing children’s music and […]

The Vegabonds are currently on tour, sharing the joy of live music, and gearing up for the release of their new album, Sinners and Saints, on September 24th from Blue Elan. Much of their music has a distinctly live feel and has seen some live play prior to release, bringing that energy home to audiences, […]

Pennsylvania’s Rivers of Nihil has been consistently creating albums that build in complexity and exploration of what it means to have Death Metal roots. The critical praise for their previous album, Where Owls Know My Name, only set that bar higher for their new project, and the layers of work that have gone into the […]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, as many musicians have struggled to adapt to being separated from their bandmates, shoegaze/dream pop-rock group Film School have been rather fortunate: with members split between Los Angeles and San Francisco since 2006, they’re already comfortable with writing and recording remotely, as they did on their evocative new album, We Weren’t […]

Since obtaining his first banjo nearly fifty years ago as a gift from his grandfather at the age of fifteen, few musicians have done more to champion the oft-misunderstood instrument than Béla Fleck. From bluegrass to country to jazz to classical to pop and even African tribal music, the five-string master has left an indelible […]

Chris D., otherwise known as Chris Desjardins, is best known for being a founding member of the LA Punk band, The Flesh Eaters, whose origins go back to 1970 but who released a new album in 2019, I Used To Be Pretty. A spin-off band from The Flesh Eaters that included Julie Christensen, Divine Horsemen, […]

Shout It Out Loud! arrives from on September 17th from Wicked Cool Records, the fifth studio album from The Cocktail Slippers, but their first in seven years following a string of stirring singles. Their title track “She Devil (Shout It Out Loud)” was even chosen by Little Steven Van Zandt as “The Coolest Song in […]

Austin-based singer/songwriter BettySoo is part of the power trio Nobody’s Girl (including Rebecca Loebe and Grace Pettis) who have recently released a self-titled LP, but she’s also been spending recent downtime working towards her next solo record, expected in 2022. Meanwhile a couple of meaningful cover songs celebrated her return to a studio after many […]

It’s so tough to pin down what Sierra Ferrell musically sounds like as her songbook is as nomadic as her true story. After years of living in her van and busking on the streets of New Orleans and Seattle, Ferrell moved to Nashville and started landing gigs around town. Soon enough, her magnetic live show […]