Author: Kurt Gottschalk

Music

Joy, survival and other endless pursuits: Vienna Carroll’s throwback blues for modern times

The blues, according to B.B. King, is about survival, and if there’s a list of people who know about both the blues and survival, King’s got to be near the top. The blues, we learn from King, isn’t about being beaten down, it’s about getting back up again. Singer Vienna Carroll knows about blues and survival, too. And she knows […]

Music

Hard-boiled lovely eggs go over easy

I’ve been admiring the Lancaster, England, duo the Lovely Eggs from afar for quite some time. They’ve been at it for well over a decade and are perfectly molded for the age of internet-induced attention deficit disorder. Their songs and videos are fast, funny, charming and can serve to work out aggression in a matter of minutes, either by giggles […]

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Horse Lords: All Grown Up and Nothing to Prove by Kurt Gottschalk

Horse Lords: All Grown Up and Nothing to Prove  by Kurt Gottschalk   Horse Lords is a complicated beast. A likeable one but, well, it’s complicated. The Baltimore band doesn’t cling to any real notions of rock, but fits snugly alongside Battles, the Books, Zs and other such bands who might not be rock but pretty much are. Their own brand […]

Music

Heavy Holism: Greg Fox and the Rhythms of Life

Greg Fox sipped his own mix of green tea, honey and nettles as he spoke from his shared loft in Gowanus in what he describes as being “as professional a situation as a bedroom studio could be.” The large, sunny room is filled with drums and other instruments, recording equipment and the ephemera of the working musician and percussion instructor. […]

Music

Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ reconsidered

Much has rightly been made of the drama surrounding and embedded into David Bowie’s ★, an album that not only addressed mortality but directly addressed his fans as well. Less has been said suggesting that it stood upon its release, as it does today, as one of Bowie’s finest records. Opinions vary, of course, and his back catalog is a […]

Music

Mick Barr’s outcast metal, by Kurt Gottschalk

After two very slow pieces for strings, organ and accordion – of which he was not a part – on a December night at Roulette in Downtown Brooklyn, Mick Barr walked onstage gripping his guitar by the neck and addressed the audience with a slight grin, saying simply, “Ear plugs?” He tested the amp with a quick strum, sounding more […]