James Mercer's van is leaking. This is not a good thing. Mercer, leader of the Shins, will soon depart with his band on a two-and-a-half-week tour that includes a stop at Nita's Hideaway in Tempe this Monday night, April 22. The mostly West Coast ...

Lucinda Williams needs to change her m.o. She survived the past two decades as the consummate music industry underdog, a favorite among critics but a nobody with the masses. Her songs, marked by a mindset of observation, were covered by fellow mus...

Waylon Jennings loved to be in control. He rarely allowed others to make decisions for him, and even then he'd famously say, "There's always another way to do things -- my way." Jennings, who died last week at his home in Chandler at the age of 64...

Jay Farrar, reluctant icon of Americana music, pauses to consider his standing in the alt-country pantheon. It's not something Farrar seems eager to discuss. After all, it's been more than 10 years since his first band, Uncle Tupelo, helped kick-s...

If 2001 was a maddening, schizophrenic year for America, that goes double for the music that bubbled to the surface in the last 12 months. For most of the year, bland frivolity and mindless chest-thumping ruled the airwaves. Then, as the World Tra...

You're Tim Anthonise. You're the lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for Gloritone, one of the Valley's better bands of recent years. You've played touch and go with major-label success, earning and then ending a deal with RCA Records, and you'v...