Uncategorized Archive
15 Oct 2009
Congrats to the Cheeksters!
My good friends (and, as it happens, a wonderful band) The Cheeksters have one of their songs featured on some new NFL Network spots. A big break, and one that’s both well-deserved and a long time coming. Read a feature on The Cheeksters here, and be sure to visit www.cheeksters.com. Click the screencap to see
07 Oct 2009
Sound and Vision from the Smithereens
Below is a clip containing some (grainy) still photos of the Smithereens onstage at the 2009 Charlotte Pop Fest. The audio is a portion of the song “Any Other Way” performed at the show. As Pat DiNizio explained, there’s not yet an official studio recording of the song available, but “someday” there might be. In
06 Oct 2009
Buy This Album!
I mean it. I’m gonna keep after you until you do. Trust me: it’s great. The video below is a reasonably good sampler of what Dennis Diken‘s Late Music sounds like, though some of the album’s truly excellent songs aren’t excerpted in the clip. Buy it! Read a review here. Then buy it!
05 Oct 2009
Preview of Upcoming Posts
There’s quite a lot in the hopper right now; here’s a brief summary of items I’m working on. This is NOT a complete list… Interviews and Features: Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull. Done, and hopefully to be published this week. But I always say that. Day 3 of the Charlotte Pop Fest Alice Cooper‘s concert
01 Oct 2009
Audio Preview: James McMurtry – Live in Europe
Here’s an audio preview of the song “Bayou Tortue”, the opening track from James McMurtry‘s forthcoming album Live in Europe. His press kit quotes some heavy hitters: The Village Voice called him “a poet of the people..” Stephen King, writing in Entertainment Weekly, pronounced him “the truest, fiercest songwriter of his generation.” The Austin Chronicle
28 Sep 2009
It Can’t Get Better Than This
The only thing better that spending an evening interviewing Dennis Diken of The Smithereens — discussing his new album Late Music (in stores tomorrow! review here) would be to interview him and then see the Smithereens in concert. No, there’s something better than that: interviewing Dennis Diken and then seeing two Smithereens shows — one
24 Aug 2009
New Porcupine Tree Video from Upcoming Album
Porcupine Tree posted a new video from their forthcoming album The Incident today. On first impression, the visuals evoked a strong sense of what I guess I’d call Englishness, and the sepia tones and occasional barbed wire in the Lasse Hoile-directed video brought to mind Storm Thorgerson‘s visuals for Pink Floyd‘s 1977 Animals LP. So
03 Aug 2009
Review Teaser: Dennis Diken with Bell Sound
Smashing! I just went to the mailbox and found my advance copy of the new album by Dennis Diken with Bell Sound. Diken is — among other cool things — drummer for the Smithereens, but this is his first up-front outing without that group. Featuring heavy friends familiar to powerpop fans (Jason Falkner; Probyn Gregory
31 Jul 2009
Porcupine Tree: The Incident
This is big. UK progressive rock quartet Porcupine Tree will release their latest album — a 2CD set called The Incident on September 15. A sampler from the album is available on the group’s myspace page. For melodic, intelligent rock in 2009, you can’t do better than Porcupine Tree. (Read my 2007 interview with PT’s