review Archive
14 Jun 2013
Album Review: Big Star – Nothing Can Hurt Me
On paper, it reads like textbook case in how not to succeed, how not to make a mark in musical history: release your debut on a label rife with distribution […]
12 Jun 2013
Book Review: Louder Than Hell
For journalist-authors, there are myriad ways to tell a story. The easiest – and often most effective – is to write the story as narrative, and insert quotes from those […]
05 Jun 2013
Album Review: The Del-Lords – Elvis Club
Sometimes, when you hear a band’s music, you get a sense of their worldview within the first few seconds. There’s the sort of artist whose work makes it clear that […]
04 Jun 2013
Album Review: The Vibrators – On the Guest List
One argument that’s endlessly trotted out is that 70s punk rock – especially the UK version of it – was a musical reaction to the self-important, overblown pomposity of much […]
03 Jun 2013
Album Review: Brainticket – Cottonwood Hill
Hype is a funny thing. Sometimes it invites scorn, mockery. Recently I received a press release heralding the latest album by “the most talked-about band of 2013.” As you might […]
31 May 2013
Album Review: Redtenbacher’s Funkestra – The Cooker
A very good friend of mine – a drummer and a serious student of music – has, in the last several years, become quite wary – cynical, almost – about […]
30 May 2013
Album Review: Man or Astro-Man? – Defcon 5…4…3…2…1
I often enjoy what one might call “high concept bands.” Our friends at open-source Wikipedia define the term this way: “…a term used to refer to an artistic work that […]
29 May 2013
Album Review: Days Between Stations – In Extremis
I truly mean no disrespect to the man, but experience has taught me not to get too excited about any musical project that involves Billy Sherwood. He’s clearly a talented […]
28 May 2013
Album Review: Johnny Lytle — The Soulful Rebel / People & Love
Growing up, I heard a lot of music in my home. My parents were in those days big music fans, even though neither could carry a tune. They knew what […]
23 May 2013
Album Review: Tea Leaf Green — In the Wake
I count In the Wake as the latest entry in my Not What I Expected file. Tea Leaf Green are known in many quarters as a jam band; that in […]