new release Archive
04 May 2015
Hundred Word Reviews for May 2015, Part 1
Once again, it’s time for me to review several handfuls of CDs. Today’s five all fall (more or less) into the progressive rock bag, and are decidedly European in sensibility. […]
30 Apr 2015
Album Review: It’s Jamaica Jump Blues Time!
For American readers and listeners, this new compilation from Fantastic Voyage requires a bit of background; when I first laid eyes on it, I had no clue as to either […]
29 Apr 2015
Hungry Hearts: Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats Release New Album
“I meet some people, and they say, ‘Oh, you’re a musician? You’re never going to eat,’” says the singer-songwriter/guitarist/namesake of Andrew Scotchie & the River Rats. He recently finished a […]
24 Apr 2015
Sometimes People Remember: A Conversation with Translator’s Steve Barton (Part 2)
Continued from Part One… “When you’re working with a producer like David Kahne or Ed Stasium, they care about the process, too,” Steve Barton notes. “Everyone has an interest in […]
23 Apr 2015
Sometimes People Remember: A Conversation with Translator’s Steve Barton (Part 1)
Though they’re perhaps best known for their 1982 single “Everywhere That I’m Not” – a quirky yet extremely catchy rock tune that subsequently found its way onto more than a […]
21 Apr 2015
Lloyd Cole: Standards and Practices, Part 2
Continued from Part One… I laughed and expressed my surprise that the sometimes singer/songwriterly Lloyd Cole is a fan of 1970s krautrock. “I’m going to be in Berlin in September, […]
20 Apr 2015
Lloyd Cole: Standards and Practices, Part 1
Lloyd Cole and the Commotions debuted onto the music scene in the 1980s, a period that dovetailed nicely with my college years. Their debut Rattlesnakes came out in 1984, and […]
16 Apr 2015
Album Review: Stevie Ray Vaughan — The Fire Meets the Fury
To a lot of people in the 1980s, Stevie Ray Vaughan was the guitar hero they had been looking for. Seemingly bursting on the scene without warning, the Texas guitarist […]
15 Apr 2015
Album Review: Art Pepper — Neon Art, Vols. 1-3
Art Pepper was a white jazz saxophonist who specialized in a West Coast style of jazz popular in the 1950s and 60s. His catalog is vast and varied; his recorded […]
14 Apr 2015
Book Review: How to Talk to Rockstars
Like most writers, I read a lot. But I rarely read fiction; I think the last work of fiction I read prior to last week was Stieg Larsson‘s Girl with […]