There’s almost always a good story around the creation of an album. I think it’s just the nature of the creative process. Sometimes though, the back story drives the record more than the other way around. That’s pretty much the case with Grey DeLisle’s new release, Don’t Turn Around. While working on SpongeBob SquarePants, the […]
John R. Miller on a New Year’s Eve Gig and Putting the Robots to Work
Nashville singer-songwriter John R. Miller remembers playing a New Year’s Eve gig at age 15, recalls time spent working in restaurant kitchens, and talks about one reason he started a career in music.
Monday Morning Video – de la Cour & Mayfield Show Preview (Boston/NYC)
Two of our favorite albums of 2025 came from Ben de la Cour and Joelton Mayfield, and this month we get to put them on the same stage. De la Cour calls his songs “night songs,” and on New Roses he plays nearly every instrument himself. Mayfield’s Crowd Pleaser, his first full-length, was close to […]
Now & Then: The Suitcase Junket’s To Go On and the reach of Bone Machine
Matt Lorenz’s homemade instruments make The Suitcase Junket easy to recognize. His songwriting gives you a reason to stay. On To Go On, written following the death of his sister and longtime musical collaborator, Kate Lorenz, that distinction matters. Tom Waits’s Bone Machine offers a useful predecessor: a record whose unconventional roots arrangements make room for mortality and tenderness alike. Lorenz’s stated affection for Waits makes the connection more than a critic’s convenient pairing.
Readers’ Pick: The Suitcase Junket – To Go On
You picked The Suitcase Junket – To Go On as your favorite new release for the week of October 2, 2026.
A Few Words with Abe Partridge
Café Wha? opened in 1959 in a MacDougal Street basement in Greenwich Village, and it has long been an early stop for artists still building their audiences. Bob Dylan first played the room in January 1961, Jimi Hendrix worked through multiple sets a night there as Jimmy James in the mid-1960s, and Bruce Springsteen did […]
Keb’ Mo’: The Breakdown and the Long Way Home
Keb’ Mo’ has been making music for more than half a century, but he still approaches a song like there is something left to figure out. Born and raised in Compton, California, he came up listening to Nat King Cole, church singers and the blues guitarists who traced the music backward toward Mississippi. At 21, […]
Prinz Grizzley Premiere – A Rose On Garbage Hill (The Daughter)
Chris Comper, like many of us in our youth, wanted to be a rock star. The Austrian native paid his dues, living in a tent for months trying to get gigs in England, moving back to Austria and then back to London before finally finding success with his band, Golden Reef. The thing is, once […]
A Few Words with The Damnwells’ Alex Dezen
The Damnwells’ Air Stereo turns 20 this year. It’s not old enough to drink yet, but the band is throwing it a party anyway with two special shows. The first was at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on September 10. The second is at Racket in NYC on Friday, October 9 (get tix). I’m not […]
Miko Marks on Music’s Healing Power and Never Breaking a Guitar String
Flint, Michigan–born singer-songwriter Miko Marks takes us inside Redtone Records, the red-walled basement studio where she rehearses, in a house tied to the founding of East Palo Alto. She also recalls her first gig, a second-grade show with a $25 fee she never saw, and talks about the day job she still holds as social director at a tennis club.