I always appreciate songs that are simple enough for even me to figure out how to play on guitar. It’s sort of like watching movies from the ’40s — forcing yourself to work around restrictions ends up making for more…
Have you guys been watching The Flash? The showrunners have achieved something truly magical — the show is about good people doing good things. It’s not cheesy, ironic, hokey, sentimental. Yes, the characters have their inner pain, but it doesn’t…
It’s hard to say which caught my attention first: Jackie Venson’s guitar playing or her gorgeous voice. But at the end of the day, it’s Venson’s songwriting chops that take the prize. While Venson’s specialty is her blues guitar, her…
The cover art on William Pilgrim’s new album shows Will and PM Romero — both men of color — getting beaten by white cops. It’s a chillingly prescient photo given current events, but the fact is it’s a fact of…
While the title of the album sounds bleak and high-concept, Bee Caves is neither of those things. “Running Home to You” and “Black Mason Hills” are probably the most radio-friendly tracks on here, and they were the friendliest to my…
A few seconds of Rick Hart’s warm, honey-sweet voice will get you hooked. He also knows how to play to his strengths. A singer-songwriter in the tradition of the folk greats of the ’60s and ’70s, all of Hart’s songs…
I’ll admit that this time I judged the book by its cover. The Tinkerbelles’ definitely have a knack for packaging. Apparently the cover folds out, MAD-magazine style. Excellent. That weird, subversive sensibility has made its way into the band’s music…
This year, the Paisley Fields’ lead singer took on the ambitious task of writing a new song a day for an entire year. The year was up a couple of months ago. “She’s No Angel” was one of the byproducts…