Recently I’ve received a number of submissions claiming to be “urban folk.” That’s a headscratcher, considering that a lot of modern folk music is indebted to Bob Dylan and the Village. Turns out, it’s generic hipster fluff with acoustic guitars…
Amythyst Kiah is going to be famous. That’s the first thing Karen (of Karen and the Sorrows) told me, and when I heard her perform life this past Friday I knew it to be true. No less than Toshi Reagon…
Slim Cessna’s Auto Club is an alt-country institution that, sadly, I’m not familiar with. Fortunately, The Commandments According to SCAC is an excellent introduction for slackers like me. The Commandments feels like a full-throttle ride through a Stephen King novel.…
After a short detour north, let’s continue our trip to New Orleans. A few days into Jazz Fest, my sister and I rolled into a bar on Frenchman Street to check out Jamie Lynn Vessels, whom a number of people…
When Paul Sanchez tells you that someone is the best rhythm guitarist they’ve ever played with, you pay attention. Due to the events referred to in my previous series, Your Twenties Are a Motherfucker, etc etc I’m only just now…
If you want to win my heart, write a good murder ballad. I’m swooning over the Cannondolls’ “Bed on Fire.” In general, it’s a genre that I wish would be put to rest (so to speak), as it perpetuates a…
Bill Waterson once famously noted that “People who get nostalgia about childhood were obviously never children.” Chris Staples (not to be confused with Chris Stapleton) seems to have applied that maxim to early adulthood in Golden Age (thus concluding our…
Moving forward with my series, Your Twenties Are a Motherfucker But It Probably Gets Worse (NB: I don’t personally think it does…at least not for a while…), there is no better conveyor of suck-titude than Lydia Loveless. I find Loveless’…