Reviews

For 26 years now, Portland, Oregon’s Waterfront Blues Festival has brought top-notch musicians from all around the world to perform to the masses with the idyllic cityscape and Willamette River as the perfect festival backdrop. All of the proceeds raised during the festival, which was more than $1.3 million dollars, benefited the Oregon Food Bank. […]

[rating=8.0] If you’ve been longing for a return to the jam-heavy, free-wheeling, good-time tunes which marked Robert Randolph & the Family Band’s debut, Unclassified, and the live albums which preceded it, your prayers have been answered. After a mild misfire in Colorblind and the band’s decision to explore the roots of soul, blues and rock […]

On a beautiful night in Boston, Fitz and the Tantrums brought their foot stomping Soul/Pop combo to a sold out Paradise Rock Club. At exactly 9:45 PM, the band hit the stage in front of a giant neon heart backdrop and a sea of LED lights. Michael “Fitz” Fitzpatrick (vocals) and Noelle Scaggs (vocals) danced […]

Over the course of the night, Gnecco and the rest of OURS rarely missed a note, and their near perfect show served only to draw the audience in even more.

The dark lighting at the Paradise was a perfect match for Eisley’s dramatic, yet powerfully melodic music. This incredibly talented family from Tyler, Texas held its audience captively from start to finish. They put together a well-structured set that conjured a mashed-up jam between the Cardigans, Pixies and the Beatles. The band walked on to […]

[rating=7.0] Normally when your lead singer dies, that spells curtains for a band. But Alice in Chains was always more about Jerry Cantrell than Layne Staley arguably speaking. And the guitarist’s decision to resurrect the name 11 years after the enigmatic and troubled original vocalist for the Seattle grunge titans succumbed to his crippling narcotic […]

[rating=9.0] Packaged with a collector’s loving eye for, the 25th Anniversary edition of Green recognizes a most significant milestone in the career of R.E.M. Notwithstanding the nay saying of the alternative music community of the time, the Athens GA quartet’s signing with Warner Bros was a logical extension of their career path to that point. […]

Though Fever Dream slows quickly following its title track, as an overall effort it transcends its flaws, standing as a promising EP from a young band with the capacity to wrap emotional, heavy lyrics inside a catchy accessible synth-pop casing.

It was all about of power punk trio’s in New York’s Bowery Ballroom as the crowd was late arriving on this hot spring night. Opening up the show was New Jersey’s Black Wine who played a noticeably percussive form of pop-punk with the drums and bass leading the way. Jeffrey Schroeck on Guitar, J Nixon […]

The Nashville by way of Detroit Deadstring Brothers pulled into the East Village club Bowery Electric to play the 100th show of their current tour. These road warriors have surely played to larger crowds though as the Friday night early set time saw only a handful of fans in attendance. Playing as a scaled back […]

A sense of camaraderie and joy that is increasingly elusive pervaded Raleigh’s Red Hat Amphitheater when Warren Haynes led the Jerry Garcia Symphonic Celebration into town. A perfectly cool evening lent itself to a relaxed, musically invigorating experience that elicited reflection, laughter, sporadic dancing, and emotion. Haynes, playing Garcia’s iconic “Wolf” guitar, was joined by […]

On a busy June weekend that found musicians, comedians, and media moguls heavily gathered in middle Tennessee for Bonnaroo or north of the border in Toronto for NxNE, the Williamsburg and Greenpoint neighborhoods of North Brooklyn found time to host an event of their own with the music and technology portion of the annual Northside […]

[rating=8.0] In its latest incarnation, Robert Walter’s 20th Congress may be a slightly realigned and augmented version of The Greyboy Allstars, of which he is a founding member. But as captured on Get Thy Bearings, this band has as much of a distinct, albeit understated personality, as its leader. Recorded around the same general timeframe […]

[rating=6.0] Filled with sun-drenched melodies, dreamy aesthetics and a whole lot of echoing sounds and fantastical flourishes, it is obvious to anyone listening to the sophomore release from Imaginary Cities that singer Marti Sarbit and songwriter Rusty Matyas had an absolute ball making this record. It doesn’t necessarily fall into any particular genre, as elements […]

Sunday is a day of exodus and closure at Bonnaroo, but this was not a year to pack up early and head for home. An extremely high-quality evening of music greeted those who stuck it out until the end. After witnessing the festival’s final acts, it was no wonder that the farm was more packed […]

[rating=8.0] Yellowbirds’ sophomore album marks Sam Cohen’s first foray into a full band collaboration since the dissolution of Apollo Sunshine in 2009. Yellowbirds’ 2011 debut, The Color, was essentially a solo album, written and conceived simply because Cohen’s overactive mind couldn’t stop writing songs. Not surprisingly, the release felt small and intimate. After traveling with […]

Saturday’s Bonnaroo bands faced a daunting task: To somehow follow up the already legendary Paul McCartney performance from the previous night. But with a new day comes new opportunity, and it ultimately proved to be the wildest day of the festival in more ways than one. Friday night, McCartney managed to overwhelm the audience on […]

Friday morning at Bonnaroo 2013 broke with the news that Jack Johnson, already on the farm because of his appearance with ALO, would be filling the freshly-vacated Saturday night headlining spot for Mumford and Sons. Attendees reacted with wildly varying levels of excitement and disappointment, but generally took the news in stride. After all, a […]

For one weekend each year, Manchester, Tennessee becomes the musical capital of America thanks to the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Before the music royalty moved in, a warm-up like no other took place on Thursday night. Bonnaroo’s 2013 headliners include greats from rock music history, but Thursday was a celebration of artists – not […]

[rating=8.0] It’s been quite some time since Chris Flemmons fired up his Denton, TX collective The Baptist Generals. Ten long years, in fact, have passed since the critically acclaimed No Silver/No Gold  buzzed the music world with its’ ambient and kaleidoscopic whirling dirges and sound-scapes.  In this day and age of blogs and self-uploading of […]