Archive: 2018

Burger Boogaloo is back on Saturday, June 30th and Sunday, July 1st and will include performances from Devo, The Damned, Le Shok, Mudhoney, Traditional Fools, The Mummies, and plenty of others. Devo will be playing their first gig in 3 years right in Oakland’s Mosswood Park. Of course, no Burger bash would be complete without its legendary host, John Waters, who will be returning for the fourth year in a […]

At least Roger Deakins finally won.

The highly anticipated follow-up to Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite’s 2013 collaboration, Get Up!, will finally hit shelves on March 30th and it is every bit as emotional, dramatic, fun and entertaining as their first time out. Maybe even more so because with No Mercy In This Land the duo has gone deeper into the […]

When you’ve played in as many bands and performed as many different styles of music as California native Robert Vickers has, there’s bound to be some confusion along the way. Somewhere down the line he became ‘Rob’ to some and ‘Bob’ to others. This helped contribute to a musical split-personality which allowed him to be […]

[rating=8.00] Four solo albums on, Tracey Thorn’s postscript to her tenure with Everything but the Girl continues to show quality control firmly in check. The succinctly titled Record retains the inherent imaginative qualities that made that duo so satisfying to both denizens of the dance floor and those that preferred their pop remain warm, engaging […]

[rating=9.00] On All Nerve, their first album in a decade, The Breeders have put together their strongest complete work since their cultural highpoint, Last Splash. Perhaps not coincidently the lineup from that album, Kim and Kelley Deal, Jim MacPherson and Josephine Wiggs, has reunited for the first time in 25 years resulting in All Nerve. The […]

[rating=8.00] There is no other musician in the public conscious quite like Andrew W.K. The Michigan-raised rocker claims titles like motivational speaker, club owner, radio personality, and music producer. Many remember W.K. for his controversial album cover for I Get Wet, which features a bloody-nosed, greasy, and intense Andrew staring maniacally. However it’s the energy […]

Seattle-based, Austin, TX-born guitar player, singer and songwriter Ian Moore makes the proverbial renaissance man look lazy. His new album Toronto, out May 25 on Last Chance Records in the US and on Rough Trade in Europe, comes on the heels of Strange Days, his most successful record since his eponymous debut. Despite a never-ending cycle […]

[rating=8.00] The Boston based Barrence Whitfield and the Savages have continued to put out strong, hard edged, punk infused soul music for over 30+ years and their newest, Soul Flowers of Titan continue their string of successes. The group has found a home on Bloodshot Records using their strengths of gritty retro R&B combined with […]

[rating=7.00] On Titus Andronicus’s last studio release, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, the band went for it all in absolute grandiose fashion with a massive triple album, punk rock opera. In the roll out to the follow-up, A Productive Cough, there were quotes that main man Patrick Stickles was “pulling a reverse Bob Dylan”, abandoning his […]

A taut and brutal thriller, Red Sparrow is a worthy entry into the spy genre.

Eli Roth’s remake leaves much to be desired.

[rating=9.00] Jonathan Wilson established a heady niche for himself early on. Veering slightly left of center as part of the so-called nu-folk revival, he took his cues from the halcyon Topanga Canyon scene of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s by retracing the same trails originally navigated by Joni, Neil, the Beach Boys, Crosby, McGuinn, […]

[rating=4.00] Two decades on from meeting while touring with their respective bands, Mike Stroud (Ratatat) and Agustin White (White Flight) have formed a new collaborative project, KUNZITE. Their debut LP, Birds Don’t Fly, came together via emails between band members across continents with spontaneous recording sessions in Hawaii, New York, California, Iceland, and even India. […]

[rating=8.00] There are pretentious artists and certainly plenty of blues rockers who sing in such an overwrought way, that they fail to connect. And then there’s the Atlanta-based southern rocker, singer-songwriter Michelle Malone who rings true in equal parts as a guitar slinger and vocalist with the songs to match. On this, her sixteenth album, […]

The Prodigal Son, Ry Cooder’s first new solo release in six years, is set for release by Fantasy Records on May 11th, 2018. Listen to the lead track, “Shrinking Man” below and pre-order The Prodigal Son here. Recorded in Hollywood, CA, and produced by Ry and his chief collaborator, drummer Joachim Cooder, The Prodigal Son […]

There’s no way to know what’s next when you lose a loved one. The most important, but also most challenging, thing you can do is keep on living. For Austin by way of Illinois singer/songwriter Lizzy Lehman and her surviving bandmates in lo-fi indie-pop quintet Carry Illinois, that also meant finding the will to write […]