Reviews

[rating=7.00] Hailing from upstate New York this organic four piece plays Americana folk with ease and grace on their self titled third release. Recorded in an old church with help from Grammy winning engineer Robby Hunter the group blends melodies and strings to create a warm sound. Opening with a stripped down sense on “High […]

Celebrating 20 years as a band, The String Cheese Incident brought it home to Colorado and played three nights at the 1st Bank Center in Broomfield. Rather than a straight run, the band played the 28th and 29th, took a night off, and then played New Year’s Eve. Bootsy Collins opened night one with a […]

[rating=6.00] Trent Dabbs’ eighth release, The Way We Look at Horses, treads familiar territory for the Nashville singer-songwriter. It is a collection of songs dealing with concepts of love, loss, death, and spiritual discovery. The title track references equine therapy and how a spiritual connection with horse and rider can help uncover buried feelings and […]

California’s oldest continuously operating live production theater reopened after its most recent renovation, on Friday night December 6th, with a benefit concert for Notes For Notes. The theater was originally founded in 1873, as the only opera house south of San Francisco. It was rebuilt in 1924 and has undergone several renovations in recent years. […]

[rating=7.00] All Your Life may be the loveliest album Al Di Meola has ever done. His affection for the Beatles material that comprises the album was no doubt amplified by recording at Abbey Road Studios where the iconic foursome did the bulk of their work. In producing this tribute to the Beatles, Di Mieola remains […]

In an industry that categorizes, compares and defines everything, James McMurtry and his music defy description. McMurtry based in Austin, Texas began playing brilliant “Americana” music two decades before either the sound or the town became all the rage.  To his credit McMurtry has been immune to criticisms such as being too acoustic but not […]

Prince’s performance at Mohegan Sun was just as James Brown as it was Jimi Hendrix and if by some chance, someone in attendance doubted his status as one of the most freakishly talented musical minds alive, they left knowing sure well where the Purple One stands amongst the greats. What made Prince’s second of three […]

Ahh, what could have been, but apparently Mother Nature isn’t a fan of funky stuff… On this frigid night in the Big Apple the NOLA phenom Trombone Shorty was billed to play NYC’s Terminal 5 with a special opening slot from Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and Funkateer first class Bootsy Collins. However Bootzilla’s […]

[rating=7.00] Jonathan Meiburg hails Fellow Travelers to be his favorite Shearwater album, as it serves as a quintessential chronicle of the Austin band’s 13-year existence told through the songs of the various acts they’ve toured with during that time. Originally conceived as an EP release, it had quickly grown to LP proportions after realizing the […]

It’s been a very, very big year for the Rolling Stones. After all, not many bands can say they are legitimately 50 years old. So if you’re looking for a little rock history reading let us recommend Keith Richards On Keith Richards, edited by Sean Egan, which is basically a compilation of interviews with Richards […]

If you only know Iron & Wine as a man who stands alone on stage with his acoustic guitar, you are way out-of-date, my friend. Welcome to Iron & Wine the band. Although Iron & Wine has always been pretty much Sam Beam, his guitar and his words, over the years his lucidity has taken […]

[rating=8.00] When it came to quality power pop in 2013, pardon the pun but there was nobody better than Ezra Furman. For both Year of No Returning and Day of the Dog, the Oakland-based songwriter opted to record without his longtime Tufts University-born group The Harpoons, instead utilizing the skills of his current touring band […]

[rating=9.00] Even apart from their historical significance, the relative rarity of live recordings by the Beatles makes both volumes of Live at the BBC valuable on their own terms. Half a century after the iconic quartet captured the fancy of the world, listening to the infectious energy captured on this second edition, progressing more or […]

Dawes, the mesmerizing indie folk rock band from Los Angeles, brought their brilliant sound to the recently reopened Lobero theater, Wednesday night, December11th. Venice, California based singer guitarist Blake Mills was advertised as the opening act, but in a strategic move, Dawes decided instead to integrate the talented musician into their dual sets of experimental […]

Perhaps no yearly event has the explosive potential for collaboration and unforgettable music of Warren Haynes’ annual Christmas Jam in Asheville, and for the 25th iteration of the event, Haynes and company maxed out the lineup and expanded to two grueling nights of music. The result was nearly 20 hours of watching music and wondering […]

There’s something in the sound of Queens of the Stone Age that doesn’t feel quite right and it’s awesome. While their riff-heavy brand of desert-bred stoner rock has found its place in the mainstream, there’s something “off” about their tunes. During their performance at Boston’s University Agganis Arena, Frontman Josh Homme and co. vamped through […]

Quite apart from its Black Friday release date, Dawes’ Stripped Down at Grimey’s comes at just the right time for both the band and its fans. It should remind both parties what brought them together in the first place, a bond that might well have become tenuous due to the anonymous nature of the group’s […]

[rating=6.00] The duo Psapp are back making quirky electro based tunes that play with found sounds and odd/invented instrumentation all structured around standard pop filaments; things aren’t artsy for art’s sake rather artsy for pop-sake. The band hadn’t made music in four years because life got in the way but there is no bad blood […]

It’s not every day that one gets the chance to see CBGB legends, Television perform. In fact, it’s not even every year. Thanksgiving weekend marked the first time in over seven years that these venerable New York City rockers graced the stage of their native land. Luring them out into the open was the grand […]

[rating=8.00] Neil Young’s Live at the Cellar Door follows in the footsteps of previous entries in his archival performance series, bearing marked resemblance to Canterbury House, the Riverboat and Massey Hall. All sterling documents of brilliant solo performances, this one is only slightly less so due to the paucity of spoken interludes that, on its […]