rawk Archive
04 Aug 2023
Say What You Will: Dave Pirner and Soul Asylum (Part 2 of 2)
Continued from Part One… The momentum of Grave Dancers Union helped propel Soul Asylum’s 1995 follow-up, Let Your Dim Light Shine even higher on the U.S. album chart, and its […]
03 Aug 2023
Say What You Will: Dave Pirner and Soul Asylum (Part 1 of 2)
It can take years to become an overnight sensation; just ask Dave Pirner. His band began in Minneapolis in 1981 as Loud Fast Rules. Renamed as Soul Asylum, the group […]
31 Jul 2023
Preview: Music to Your Ears – Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits
Tom Petty was a giant of American music. Petty released more than a dozen studio albums with his band, three solo albums, two records as a member of supergroup Traveling […]
26 Jul 2023
Album Review: R.E.M. — Collapse Into Now
After the mixed reception that greeted 2004’s Around the Sun, R.E.M. seemed to rally with its studio followup, Accelerate, released four years later. Both critical response and sales figures seemed […]
25 Jul 2023
Album Review: R.E.M. — Around the Sun (Part 2 of 2)
Continued from Part One… Picking up after my last post’s lengthy contextualization, here’s my look at Around the Sun, newly reissued as a 2LP set. “Leaving New York” certainly comes […]
24 Jul 2023
Album Review: R.E.M. — Around the Sun (Part 1 of 2)
Artists evolve; that’s what they do. Unless they’re outliers (Oasis inevitably comes to mind as the exception that proves the rule), the music they make at the start of their […]
17 Jul 2023
Album Review: Ally Venable — Real Gone
It’s a largely inescapable fact of life that pop and hip-hop are the primary musical genres for the younger demographic. These days, the audiences rock, jazz, blues – even country […]
15 Jul 2023
30 Days Out, July 2023 #2: Rocky Horror Music Show, Mike Rhodes Fellowship, Polyphony Marimba, The Supersuckers
Two acclaimed local/regional acts, some lively and unusual (forgive the term; they use it) “world music” and some up-against-the-wall-mofos rock ‘n’ roll: those are the highlights of live music in […]
13 Jul 2023
Q&A With Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan (Part 3 of 3)
Continued from Part Two… We’ve briefly discussed Quadrophenia. You’ve mentioned that The Who inspired you in other ways. Tell me more about that. Something Pete Townshend once told me in […]
12 Jul 2023
Q&A With Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan (Part 2 of 3)
Continued from Part One… With this ambitious three-part album being the third chapter in this larger work that includes Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness and Machina/The Machines of God, […]