Interviews

Jason Collett’s latest record, the 2008 release Here’s To Being Here (Arts & Crafts) is a marvelous thing; it’s personal enough to put on when drinking with friends becomes an option. It begs for authenticity through conversation. He pens lyrics like “The perennial fatigue of the times/when you’re long in the tooth/short in the sleeve/there’s nowhere left to hide” which let you into a world you only feel like sharing with your best friend. All this coming from a guy with three children. And when he’s not getting personal, he’s still littering his albums with references to joints and cigarettes.

He's consistently a good interview, but no matter how many times you get the privilege, you come away with the same sense of wonderment: Warren Haynes is mentally organized. Granted, he's a lot of things, and you have to expect as much, given how many projects he's been juggling for how many decades now—and how in the next six months alone he'll be on tour with Gov't Mule and the once-again-reconstituted Dead, as well as play solo shows and hold it down with the Allmans for the just-confirmed 2009 Beacon Theater run.

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.

The story of Andrews and Sam Quinn of the everybodyfields is furiously engaging: you get twisted around while you’re witnessing the beauty of it all. There are no straight roads, and there is no turning around once their songs have gotten a hold of you. Much like the beautiful harmonies that the two create, there is always give and take.

Thirty minutes is an eternity with some artists; with Joey Burns, one of two main members behind one of the more unique rock bands of the past two decades, it's a warm-up. Ever since their earliest days playing together in Giant Sand, Burns and John Convertino have found synergy in broad brushstrokes from all over the pop music palette and beyond: Americana, soul, alt-country, indie rock, and various flavors from Mexico, South America, Europe and parts unknown.

In the first part of Glide’s interview with Melora Hardin, much of the focus was on her life outside of “The Office.”  But it’s now September, and that means new seasons of your favorite shows on television, including new episodes of “The Office” starting the 25th on NBC. Hardin’s role as Jan on “The Office” is just warming up – she’s pregnant (who’s the father?), single, and, as always, unpredictable.   

Anyone who’s followed Bennett’s career is bound to ask: how’s he feeling? With a bad back (childhood treehouse fall) and a long-time bum knee (he was wearing a knee brace as we were talking), Bennett still has a certain amount of discomfort to put up with even on a good day.

Armed with a slick persona, creative song writing and an innate ability to capture ears and audiences, the Grammy winning, multi-platinum artist has sold millions of records without selling out and on his upcoming release Love, War, and the Ghost of Whitey Ford (September 23 Sony/ATV Music) Everlast takes listeners on yet another musical journey.

One of rock’s greatest improvisational bands, Little Feat regrouped in the eighties after disbanding for a short interval in the wake of the death of founder and titular leader Lowell George. Little Feat’s Richie Hayward took a few moments to discuss Join The Band as well as other activities with which he fills his time personally and professionally. It was a conversation as good natured and unhurried as the music of the group for which he is drummer and founding member.

In Neil Young’s newest riveting film, CSNY: Déjà Vu, Young features a young marine, Josh Hisle, who also happens to be a musician, husband, and father. We’re taken into Young’s hotel room where they jam to Hisle’s “Traitor’s Death,” and the two instantly hit it off. For Hisle, his first tour or duty in Iraq was a success. But when Hisle was sent back to Ramadi in 2004, his outlook on the war changed and he did not want to give his life for a purpose that he no longer recognized.

The fact that Fareed Haque is a professor of jazz and classical guitar at the University of Northern Illinois is ironic. Not because he lacks experience or ability (obviously), but because the most recent Garaj Mahal album w00t is the type of album that could possess any self-respecting young musician to open the window of their sixth story walk-up and heave their instrument in the general direction of the nearest dumpster never to play it again.