Celebrating Community
For download or limited edition 2-CD set https://redmeatcountry.bandcamp.com/releases By Jack Grace If you understand legitimate rootsy country music, listening to the band, Red Meat is satisfying in a way not unlike scratching that hard to reach itch way in the middle of your back. They have a deep groove all their own that only a truly committed band with years […]
It’s easy to think of Lonnie Holley as a bluesman. He fits the type: rural, Southern, self-educated, quick with folksy wisdom and deep, dark truth. But Holley is a philosopher poet, more like Son House when he put his guitar down, more like Van Morrison casting ruminations over flowing, nebulous music. Van Morrison had his blues, too, of course. The […]
Today, tomorrow, and yesterday, too The flowers are dyin’ like all things do Follow me close, I’m going to Bally-Na-Lee I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds I contain multitudes So go the first lines of Bob Dylan’s first album of new songs in eight years. He […]
MTV launched in 1981 with a video for the Buggles song “Video Killed The Radio Star,” and the medium of music has never been the same. Most music that is. Music at the edges and in the niches that line mass, popular culture has been little affected by music videos. Opera and experimental Western art music have been working with […]
Next year will mark the 30th anniversary of drone metal pilgrim Dylan Carlson’s first release under the name Earth. In that time, countless bands from all corners of the world have emerged into the new freedom, among them iconic innovators and black copycats. The best of what we might call the New Wave of Experimental Heavy Metal relies, in a […]
As we prepare for the long game here in the US, it’s hard to not feel frustrated with everyone that has put us in this situation. It is not a discussion anymore. It is an all out war over telling the truth or believing lies and building a larger grey area in between. Having Donald Trump as the President of […]
The mysterious multi-media project known as “The Residents” has long been big on reinvention. In the 1980s—already a decade and a half into the anonymous collective’s shared career—the outfit released albums reinterpreting the music of James Brown, George Gershwin, John Philip Sousa and Hank Williams, turning masters of American music into catchy, ugly, digital ditties. They’ve also been big on […]
Prince was never lacking for fans. Years after he was getting regular radio play, his albums were still charting and his concerts selling out. While existing largely outside the music industry (or within the micro-industry he built), Prince maintained a substantial and remarkably faithful fan base. There aren’t many musicians who can play Madison Square Garden without a record contract. […]
Last month, I expressed pessimism over the future of live jazz in New York. I’m still unsure how many venues are going to survive into Phase 4 of the COVID-19 reopening, much less after, but some of the leading names have been trying to present live music to remote audiences, with the biggest name, the Village Vanguard, starting up their […]
X broke the mold of what a punk band should be. Amid 1970s West Coast zealot savants like Flipper and Germs, X was a talented band versed in multiple styles and with a passion for vocal harmonies. They were also as committed to the cause as any of their upstart peers and through five essential albums held fast to the […]