Swedish sensation Nadia Nair is back with another single from her debut album, Beautiful Poetry, which will be released on April 29th. The new song is called “Dear Brother” and features 90s-inspired production, upbeat bass and mantra-like harmonies. “Dear Brother” follows the more minimalistic first single, “Something Something Something,” which gained support from the likes …
I just watched Mavis! on HBO – this documentary is so good, it even caused me to have warm feelings towards Jeff Tweedy! There’s great vintage clips and commentary from Chuck D & Dylan, plus a warm moment with Levon Helm not long before he passed. – Pat Thomas is the author of Listen, Whitey! …
Drinking a cold beer and listening to Van Morrison’s near masterpiece Veedon Fleece. I always wanted to track down this album, now I am tripping through Van’s own Irish myth and stream of conscious ramblings toward rich green patches of brilliance. He’s just a giant mushroom. He doesn’t make much sense, but you are free …
No music fan with a pulse can resist a tune called, “Chimbombo,” and you can’t either…
Embattled singer/songwriter Vince Grant is championing honesty about mental illness by releasing the latest video for “Oceans II” (above) from his critically acclaimed debut CD My Depression Is Always Trying To Kill Me (below). This release has ignited public discussion about depression. The Los Angeles-based Grant is the rare musician who has openly addressed his …
I was having a beer with a friend of mine when I got the news of Keith Emerson’s death. There seems to have been a recent wave of rock and roll icons exiting stage left – and given all of our advancing ages – more soon to come. But hearing about the untimely demise of …
What does a record producer do? What does he bring to the studio? In the case of Phil Spector, it was usually a revolver, a cloud of dread, and a closet full of percussion instruments. Nick Lowe seems to have brought bonhomie and the shortest path through the session to the pub afterwards. To read …
London-based EDM artist INDIAN PRINCESS has come out with a blistering satire of the vacuous aspirations to globalism in her genre which you may see and hear here:
Tuesday night February 9 marked the annual return of ska masters The Toasters. They embarked immediately on long time favorites, “I’m Running Right Through the World” and “Pirate Radio,” but it was when they played “Weekend In LA” that the dance floor really lit up. I didn’t see a still body on that dance floor. …
Bird do it, bees do it, even the Black Keys do it… https://theholygasp.bandcamp.com/
I went to my third Lamb of God concert a couple of days ago. They are a pure American metal band from Virginia who met at Virginia Commonwealth University at least 20 years ago. In 2003, I flew from Chicago to a municipal airport in Creighton, Nebraska for work. I had a nursing case in …
Coldplay has definitely found the sweetspot where East meets West:
Laugh in the Dark by Tommy Keene catches you by surprise and reminds you of fun as would a county fair stop on your way to a funeral. On “All Gone Away” Keene delves into the brief, transitory nature of our existence and asks “27 minutes left for you, how do you want it to …
Formed in the spring of 2014, High Waisted is an NYC surf rock band with pop sensibilities and an affliction for rock and roll. Every show is a party. Lo-fi fuzzy bass, reverb drenched guitars and radiant harmonies mesh to create the melodies of your wave-crashed daydreams. Fronted by Jessica Louise Dye, and backed by …
Dig the layers in this tune… Raised in the suburbs of Austin, Texas, Angela Burns grew up listening to 90s grunge, pop-punk, and post-grunge bands circa 2000s. Her biggest aspiration being acting, she wrote her first song at age 9 and began playing drums in a band with her two sisters, Kathryn and Carolyn. After …
Cameron Heger is a musician and dog lover from right here in our beloved Portlandia, Oregonia. After writing songs and playing drums in a few bands, this past year he decided to venture out on his own and see an entire musical project through from writing, to arranging, to performing. He enlisted his friend, Sam …
Tvärvägen, the crossroads man, Henrik Öhberg, has a released a new song called “Phantom Signals” and it’s cool like January in the arctic. Give it a listen. https://www.facebook.com/tvarvagen
Damien Lillard of the Portland Trailblazers is back with another song and video:
Samm Henshaw & Bonkaz single “Autonomy (Slave)” operates on many levels, utilizes a stunning array of tools, and drives the lane down the center of your brain. The lyrics bring to light the captive, mediated pawns that in the current life game forever run in patterns unchanged. Visceral, ballsy, soulful and sweet, the vibrato of …
It’s January the first and it’s my first concert of the year. After being out until well past midnight seeing the fireworks shoot off the Space Needle, I was exhausted all the next day and wouldn’t have made the effort for any lesser band. But the Crocodile Cafe, in the heart of Seattle’s Belltown, was …
meet The Spiders From Mars, Ziggy Stardust’s backing band. they were originally were called David Bowie & The Hype (only with later manager Tony Visconti on bass). when the Ziggy Stardust album came out, their name was changed to The Spiders From Mars. but, they played on all the tunes, helped craft the music, arranged …
I’ve been trying to get my hands on this album for decades, today is the day I’ve got it in my hands! Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames live at The Flamingo Club in September 1963 recorded by Glyn Johns. The music has been described as involving “distinctly sensuous body movements and even the most …
December 1979’s Concerts for Kampuchea, a fairly successful meeting between 70s classic rock in its final breaths and a crop of ‘new wave’ bands starting to hit commercial success. Plant was the only old dude to mix it up with a ‘contemporary’ band – although nobody thought about it at the time – Rockpile’s frontmen …
Jerry Douglas and Peter Rowan will be appearing at Portland’s Alberta Rose Theatre on New Year’s eve. Should be a great show. Jerry Douglas is the Bela Fleck of the dobro. This is high praise indeed. By this I mean he has taken the sound and performance capacity of the dobro to the highest levels …
Some old friends are making a great film about MALI, its music, and the culture of a special place in a difficult time. if you can throw them even a few bucks so they can finish it, that would be great. >>>>>>>>>> “Malian Pieces is a feature documentary and accompanying online series that follows musician …
These agile musicians get a great sound, an urgent beat, and the brass section busts some surprisingly nimble dance moves while playing a bass sax. Thanks to Daniel Housman for sending along this viral vid to me. 20 years ago Daniel and I saw Morphine, that excellent 90s sax-based band, at the Off Ramp in …
On Friday night December 18th I sacrificed seeing the new Star Wars on opening night to instead see Nick Lowe at Seattle’s Neptune Theater. The sacrifice was well worth it. Now white haired and bespectacled, Nick Lowe got on stage as a solo act for about the first two or three songs. Then the real …
I caught this on the local jazz station a few days ago. Called “Christmas Will Really Be Christmas,” this 1967 tune is an extraordinary Christmas meditation which deserves some reconsideration in 2015. As one friend described it, “Damn man, this really is a stone groove. Totally dig it.”
After Sgt. Pepper, many of us Baby Boomers became so, uhhh, “sophisticated,” that we began sneering at many of the early British Invasion bands who served as our first introductions to rock ‘n’ roll. So many superb bands, including The Hollies and The Zombies and The Searchers, got shuffed off by us in our unwashed …