Archive: 2020

Today Cass McCombs has released “Don’t (Just) Vote”, a reimagined version of his 2011 song “Don’t Vote”. “Don’t Just Vote,” noted writer and activist Noam Chomsky encouragingly states in the song. “We have to excise a malignant cancer from the body politic. But that’s just the beginning. Real politics is what you do before and after you […]

Earlier this month on Dead Oceans, Kevin Morby released Sundowner, his “attempt to put the Middle American twilight —  its beauty profound, though not always immediate —  into sound.” The album garnered glowing praise from Pitchfork, Stereogum, Uproxx, Aquarium Drunkard, and more. Riding off of the album’s release, Morby today presents a new standalone single, “US Mail,” which he originally debuted […]

Twenty-one years since Mr. Bungle last recorded an album together, the California experimental rock band returns with a new album, which is actually a re-recording of the first album the band ever made. In 1986, Mr. Bungle self-produced and released The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny on cassette tape, a fiery collection of thrash […]

Like pretty much every band on Earth, there was a lot of waiting around going on in 2020 for The Parson Red Heads. The completion of their fifth studio album, Lifetime of Comedy, was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic freezing everybody in place for months, and a process that had begun just […]

Sometimes when a band decides to use songs from the past that never made it onto an album, that disc can sound disjointed, uninspired, dull. But when Black Stone Cherry had a hankering to do this for their new record, they got lightning in a bottle. Never a band to really chill out sonically, BSC […]

It took a while to catch on, but by the mid-to-late 1990s a slew of punks, using The Pogues catalogue as the template, started to forge a solid Celtic Punk rock movement in the U.S., merging the anger and politics of Punk with the instruments associated with Celtic music (mandolins, accordions, banjos and the occasional […]

The Rex Foundation continues to help where it’s needed most and 2020 certainly has its share of needed recipients. The charitable organization began by members of the Grateful Dead and Friends in 1983 recently announced that $25,000 from the 2020 Daze Between virtual festival taken place between the late Jerry Garcia’s birthday (8/1) and passing […]

Passenger is at it again with a brilliant Americana song called “A Song For the Drunk and Broken Hearted” off his upcoming new studio album Songs for the Drunk and Broken Hearted out on January 8, 2021. Demonstrating his charming vocal delivery, restrained guitar solos, and a band that works together blending tone and dancing […]

And Angus Young has put on the schoolboy outfit for yet another time and we hope it’s not the last as AC/DC has officially released the video for “Shot In The Dark” directed by their longtime video director, David Mallet. The release of the video was preceded by a conversation between Mallet and the band, […]

This past weekend Tom Petty’s Birthday Bash was held as a livestream, and there were tons of noteworthy names paying respect to the Gainsville icon that passed away in October 2017. The standouts were endless including Brandi Carlile’s take on“Wildflowers,” Foo Fighters nailing “Honey Bee” Chris Stapleton did “Don’t Fade On Me,” Norah Jones did […]

In a distinct and vivid reflection of their live performances, Medeski Martin & Wood have certainly traveled a most intriguing career path over the course of their near-thirty years together. The threesome has followed its collective instincts in every facet of their work as unerringly as they do within the spontaneity of their moments live […]

The ever-restless guitarist/producer/songwriter/film scorer King Khan who leads several bands, most prominent among them, King Khan and the Shrines, is known as a purveyor of psychedelic soul, punk-infused garage rock, gospel, and irreverent rock n’ roll. He has found yet another unexplored frontier, his first-ever jazz album, The Infinite Ones. The album features Marshall Allen […]

Shawn James’ voice is a force of nature, a musical preacher to a flock that accepts everyone, a combination of the gospel choirs he sang with as a youngster and his training in classical music and opera. Born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, James’ timeless sound is steeped in blues legends like […]

Hardened blues fans recall Nora Jean Wallace as Nora Jean Bruso, the powerhouse vocalist who appeared on two of Jimmy Dawkins’ albums in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and perhaps her most recent release, dating to 2004, the BMA-nominated, acclaimed Going Back to Mississippi.  The Chicago-based Nora Jean returns to the blues and to […]

Vanessa Collier is a musician who started playing the saxophone at age nine. While she was studying at Berklee, she landed a job touring with Joe Louis Walker. On top of that, she won a 2020 Blues Music Award for Best Instrumentalist –horn player. It was Walker who counseled her to strike out on her […]

Real Estate member Alex Bleeker who used to perform with “and the Freaks” in his title will follow 2015’s Country Agenda with a new solo album, Heaven on the Faultline, out March 5 via Night Bloom Records. Written and recorded over the last several years, Heaven on the Faultline’s songs were initially recorded straight to GarageBand in Bleeker’s bedroom before receiving […]

Quarantine Hits: Notable Hip Hop Albums of 2020  It’s October, and we are alive! 2020 year was not the end of the world, after all. If there is anything to learn from it, that would be the entertainment industry’s resilience. This year has seen some of the best hip-hop album released in the midst of […]

Australian-via-California songwriter Mimi Gilbert is back with a stellar new track “Taught to Build Walls” which is a passionate plea about disconnection. The melody is textured and familiar, yet fresh-feeling at the same time. Gilbert’s powerful vocal shine bright in her forthcoming new album Grew Inside the Water that tackles her struggles with body image, sexuality, […]