Archive: 2025

The Valery Trails began in 2011 as a trans-Pacific project with members in Houston, Texas, and Brisbane, Australia, and are now all based in Brisbane. The Valery Trails are entering their 2nd decade, creating melodic indie-based guitar rock, with their 5th album, Winter Palace, scheduled for release in September. On their new single, “First Kiss,” […]

The opening notes of GECKØS’ self-titled debut are, fittingly, the first sounds the trio ever created together. It happened on the day of a wedding in Tucson, Arizona, where M. Ward, Howe Gelb (of Giant Sand), and Mark McCausland (a.k.a. McKowski) had been asked to compose a song for the couple’s first dance. Though each […]

When the Grateful Dead stepped away from touring in 1974 following their farewell shows at Winterland, there was no telling when—or even if—they’d regroup. But just a year later, they defied expectations with Blues for Allah, a bold return marked by some of the most inventive and sonically daring music they’d ever recorded. Blues for […]

Over the course of two days, July 18 and 19, 2025, the Deschutes County Fairgrounds in Redmond, Oregon hosted a festival that brought an incredible lineup of independent country music artists and tens of thousands of fans to the high desert of Central Oregon. In the days leading up to Fairwell Festival, reports of nearby […]

The hunt for working bonus codes for NZ’s returning casino players, be sure your connection can keep pace; otherwise you might miss out on a lucrative code just as the reels start spinning.  Speed is important, but not only. Latency — the time it takes a packet to travel between computers — is also crucial. […]

For a long time, regular slot machines have been sufficient for use in casinos. Millions of people worldwide play slot machines for the bright lights, loud sounds, and big jackpots. The latest gambling trend is skill-based casino games. Some wonder whether these new games will replace slot machines. While players in skill-based games have more […]

Continuing our spotlight on Minutemen this week, as mentioned in yesterday’s Manic Monday column, the band was nothing if not eclectic. For best evidence of this, one should look no further than their classic 1984 album Double Nickels on the Dime. Throughout its sprawling 44-song tracklist, the band dabbles in everything from country, blues, spoken […]

Patty Griffin’s return from a six-year hiatus is the stunning Crown of Roses. Stunning should not necessarily be viewed positively, but in terms of how remarkably bleak most of the tunes are. The best songwriters, Griffin among them, often gravitate toward dark material, and her recent run of albums has moved increasingly in that direction. […]

The term “Blues Summit” implies a gathering of guests. Whether Devon Allman was inspired by B.B. King’s Grammy-winning 1993 album of the same name or not, there are similarities in that the lineup featured contemporary artists and blues stalwarts. Here, Allman takes a break from the Allman-Betts Band and returns to Ruf Records for this […]

With their boldest release to date, Orchestra Gold unveils Dakan, a transcendent new album that explores the intertwined themes of destiny (dakan) and passion. Guided by the visionary vocals of Malian singer Mariam Diakite, Dakan is a sonic and spiritual journey rooted in tradition, driven by intuition, and lit ablaze with psychedelic energy. Their new […]