For all its merits of recognizing artists’ contributions to modern music, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, by rule, honors musicians for work they created at least a quarter-century earlier. Thus, you have creaky 50- or 60-year-olds performing the music of their youth at the induction ceremonies, leaving a…
Not just any band could have their praises sung by fellow musicians as disparate as Bono, Siouxsie Sioux and Chic’s Nile Rodgers, but then Roxy Music were not like any other band. Emerging from Great Britain in the early 1970s, U2’s lead singer remembers Roxy like this, “Imagine you’re a…
More than a decade into the internet age, it’s hard to imagine a time when music and the artists who created it carried an aura of mystery. Before information about any topic under the sun was just a few computer keystrokes away, word of mouth was an absolutely vital part…
Often referred to as “the first lady of gay and lesbian comedy,” Kate Clinton’s successful career spans more than a quarter-century. And standup is hardly her only talent. She’s appeared in films and on Broadway, and is an award-winning blogger and the author of three books, including this year’s I…
It’s fitting that All In One, Bebel Gilberto’s new studio album, has been released by Verve Records. It’s the label that released Getz/Gilberto in 1964, still one of the best-selling jazz albums of all time and the one that launched Brazil’s sexy bossa nova sound to international acclaim with the…
Wow, has it really been two decades since The Black Crowes released their debut album Shake Your Money Maker? Just about, kids, that disc dropped in January 1990. Almost 20 years later, the Crowes are many things to many people, depending on when you came to their party: classic rock…
Things getting better with age is an age-old cliché that rarely holds true for anything beyond the obvious “fine wine” analogy, but we can safely add “Nick Cave’s career” to that short list. Now on the far side of a half-century of life, the last few years have been remarkably…
A sage singer/songwriter named Willie Nelson once extolled the joys of “making music with my friends” and a younger, but perhaps no less sage, singer/songwriter named Neil Finn obviously got the message. But instead of heading out “on the road again,” New Zealander and Crowded House frontman Finn invited many…
There’s a long list of actors who want to be musicians. Some of them form bands with bad names like Russell Crowe’s 30 Odd Foot of Grunts and Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar. Some even scored as musical one-hit wonders, such as Eddie Murphy and Bruce Willis. Few, however, have moved beyond…
It’s an event that happens once a generation. If you’d had a child in 1987, the last time the Beatles catalog was re-mastered for release (on CD, for the first time), the kid wouldn’t be a kid anymore. Voting rights? Check. Able to purchase alcohol without a fake ID? Check…
Covers albums, by their very nature, are a mixed bag. Not only are their songs usually drawn from disparate sources, but the quality of interpretations varies wildly as well. Beyond that, the covers album seems to represent a mixed bag for the artists creating them. On the one hand, it…
God Help The Girl God Help The Girl (Matador) So you’re Stuart Murdoch, successful songwriter, vocalist and leader of Scottish indie darlings Belle and Sebastian. Your work with the group has made it one of the best-loved bands of the last decade-plus while your songwriting has developed from almost painfully…
George Harrison Let It Roll – Songs by George Harrison (Capitol/Apple/Dark Horse) A great band is always more than the sum of its individual parts and, perhaps, no band illustrates that adage better than The Beatles, arguably the greatest band of all time. You could cherry pick the best songs…
Nick Cave is a bad-ass. Perhaps, the baddest ass around. Consider: in the last few years alone, he’s released two of the best albums of his career — Dig Lazarus Dig!!! with longtime backing band The Bad Seeds and the self-titled debut by side project Grinderman. He wrote the screenplay…
Sunny pop music and summertime are made for each other like two soulmates holding hands on an oceanside stroll. With the weather heating up here in the Valley of the Sun, let’s take a look at some great summer music… Tinted Windows Tinted Windows (S-Curve Records) A power pop supergroup…
Meat Puppets, the iconic alternative band who are arguably Arizona’s greatest-ever musical export, release their 12th studio album, Sewn Together, today. How much do we think of the band? Well, let’s just say we didn’t name this blog after a Gin Blossoms or Jimmy Eat World album, now did we?…
What is it about Scotland that makes the country of just more than 5 million people produce far more than its fair share of great pop music artists? Consider the following sample list: Simple Minds, Orange Juice, Aztec Camera, Big Country, Altered Images, The Bluebells, The Jesus and Mary Chain,…
International acclaim has been the death of too many bands to mention, but has the crash and burn of any group been as brutal as that endured by The Vines this decade? Rewind to 2002, and the Australian band was hailed as the saviors of rock on the cover of…
After releasing their first album in 1996, power pop purists Fountains of Wayne finally deliver their debut DVD, No Better Place – Live in Chicago, 13 years later. While that may seem a little late in the game, it’s about right on schedule for FoW time. After all, this is…
It’s one thing to have a musical career that’s lasted more than a quarter-century. Impressive? Sure. Noteworthy? Not really — plenty of popular artists have pulled it off by this point. It’s quite another thing to have a musical career of comparative anonymity that lasts more than a quarter-century. When,…
Belle and Sebastian The BBC Sessions (Matador) By Thomas Bond For a band that began life as a one-off final project for singer Stuart Murdoch’s university music business course, Scotland’s Belle and Sebastian have done pretty well for themselves, now seven studio albums into their career. As it’s been nearly…
Steve Wynn Crossing Dragon Bridge (Rock Ridge Music) By Thomas Bond After three stellar albums known as the “desert trilogy” because they were made in Tucson, singer/songwriter Steve Wynn set off for a change of scenery for his new disc Crossing Dragon Bridge. Recorded in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia,…
