There’s a great story behind Roots Volume 1, Merle Haggard’s delightful new disc, his second for the Anti- label. By chance, Haggard discovered that Norman Stephens, who played lead guitar on some of Lefty Frizzell’s 1950s recordings, lived just fifty miles from Haggard’s Northern California home. Frizzell, one of country…
It’s a Scottish supah-group, y’all, and the only thing you should really be scared about is whether anyone will ever be able to top this record. Gary Lightbody of twee-poppers Snow Patrol birthed the idea of a giant Scottish musical collaboration while drinking at a Lou Barlow show in Glasgow…
One of New York City’s premiere contemporary voices, Laurie Anderson has returned to recording with Life on a String, her first studio release in seven years. The twelve-track album — which Anderson released through Nonesuch after two decades with Warner Bros. — continues the dark, existential musings of 1994’s Brian…
Once upon a time, in a land not all that far away, the notion that sample or mix-driven music could reach the level of art was viewed as logical, even inevitable. But money and popularity breeds conservatism, which helps explain why the majority of today’s hip-hop producers are more interested…
The Pepsi Center is actually an okay place to pass an evening, no matter what’s going on inside, if you stick to the outer edges and avoid the actual event altogether. The club level has a couple of bars and a nice patio with a view of downtown. In the…
What happened to rock music? Not the sagging, moldering corpses of Stevie Ray and Jimi, still propped up and sucked off on classic-rock radio. Just straightahead rock music like the Replacements or the Ramones, played with a certain fearlessness about trying new things. Answer: Carlos (Wednesday, November 21, at the…
Mary Flower is a hero of American acoustic-guitar music — and proof that the most moving art is often found in one’s own back yard. Ladyfingers, which sees release on Friday, November 16, at Swallow Hill, is the Denver native’s finest recording yet. Flower’s seasoned singing and acoustic playing dig…
When the world changed on September 11, so did Boots Riley’s career. About a week after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the leader of the Oakland-based rap group the Coup found himself folded into the news of the day, amid images of debris-covered firefighters and…
Sex and housecleaning aside, electronic dance music is best appreciated in the thick of a sweaty, pulsating, late-night throng with all the usual club-culture accoutrements. And because an essential element of any DJ’s mojo is the symbiotic transfer of energy from the booth to the dance floor and back, the…
First, some background: The Langley Schools Music Project is a relic, a lost recording originally produced sometime in 1976 or 1977. It stars an untrained mass of sixty elementary-school students from the farmland community of Langley, British Columbia, conducted by a guitarist and music teacher named Hans Fenger. In the…
If anyone deserves a tribute album, it’s Hank Williams, who died on January 1, 1953, in the back of his chauffeured Cadillac touring car, on the way to a one-nighter in Canton, Ohio. He was just 29 years old, yet he had created a body of work that set the…
Twenty-two-year-old Bilal’s promising debut bolsters the argument that Philadelphia may once again be the center of soul. With the help of fellow Philly soulquarians ?uestlove from the Roots and producer/musician James Poyser (Common, D’Angelo), Bilal suggests the energy and inspiration of the city’s most exciting musical era — when producers…
All too many performers working under the new-age rubric feel their primary job is to put people to sleep, or at least to relax a listener’s brain until it’s as vital and reactive as a strand of vermicelli. But that doesn’t mean the style lacks possibilities: Not all music needs…
The great dot.com crash proved that the Internet is not the pot of entrepreneurial gold that start-up types had hoped. But for some of us, the evaporation of so many e-commerce sites is a welcome development, as it leaves more time for discovering the Web’s true gems — like biblical…
Paul Burch, Sunday, November 11, at the Gothic Theatre, may not have earned the flood of attention poured over No-Depression sweetheart and headliner Ryan Adams. But Burch has earned much respect among knowing alt-country types for his exceptional back-dated country and Americana. With his band, the WPA Ballclub, he’s released…
School Aid, Sunday, November 11, at the Paramount Theatre, is a charity event organized to raise money for New York City students and teachers affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks. But altruism is not the only incentive here. With performances by Three Degrees of Freedom, Liz Clark, Tinker’s Punishment…
“Why do so many teenage girls love Rufus Wainwright?” This important query is posed by Adrienne, a young woman whose essay appears on “Our Matinee Idol,” a charming Web page at members. tripod.com/~rufuswainwright — and she comes up with more than her fair share of answers to it. Although she…
Jason Pierce doesn’t know how to read. Music, that is. Incredible, then, that he’s been able to build a musical career that’s spanned more than a decade, first as singer/guitarist for ’80s-era psychedelic-rock icons Spacemen 3 and later as a founding member and the mastermind behind Spiritualized, the darlings of…
Like many musicians, Chris Watkins has a tough time putting a label on his sound. “I’m one of those hyphenated people,” says Watkins, who plays under the name Preacher Boy. “You know, folk-blues-roots-jazz-soul-blah-blah-blah. The influences I pull off of are rooted in the folkie, storytelling kind of songwriting thing.” Watkins…
A few weeks ago, Backwash received a press release from Wind-up Records in New York, a label whose most high-profile client is the ubiquitous radio-rock band Creed. “Creed and Wind-up Records will launch the ultimate fan connectivity tool,” began this exciting news flash, “with a free download of a ‘virtual…
One of the downsides of the post-September 11 expansion in American philanthropy — so far, nearly $1 billion has been raised to provide relief to survivors of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks — is the shrinking of donations to traditional charities. An all-star slate of literary superstars hope…
Though Justin Roth is a native of Minnesota, he sounds very much at home in his adopted hometown of Denver. Roth’s simply instrumented but authentically rendered acoustic music recalls the folky tradition that’s so much a part of our state’s musical history. The singer-songwriter, who tours non-stop to support himself…
