Lissie’s persistant publicist (say that 3 times fast) recently pursued me to check out the artist’s new 5 song EP, which is being released on Fat Possum Records November 10th. After doing so, what I found was a mellow recording bringing to mind possibly something from Tift Merritt or Emmylou. I wasn’t instantly struck by […]
Drive-By Truckers/The Fine Print
The Fine Print is an unreleased (until now) collection of Drive-By Truckers tunes recorded over the last few years and mostly culled from the Dirty South era. While it is not as strong as that record, or Decoration Day, I”m guessing the die hard Trucker fan will snatch up these “b-sides” and cover tunes. For […]
The Restoration/Faulknerian chamber pop from Lexington, South Carolina
John Moreland/Rob’s House Demos
John Moreland and the Black Gold Band’s website states the following:  We’re from Okalahoma. We’re loud as hell. We don’t give two shits.  That may sum up the band when in full force, and it may sum up their 2008 album Endless Okalahoma Sky, but it doesn’t really capture the feeling of Rob’s […]
Slaid Cleaves / Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away
I got a copy of the new Slaid Cleaves for review and the first thing I said to myself was, “Self, you’ve heard of Slaid Cleaves but I don’t think you’ve ever listened to him. Or if you have, you didn’t know it was him at the time.” I have deep thoughts like that sometimes. […]
Pete Yorn/Back & Fourth
Pete Yorn/Back & Fourth  I’m a pretty big Pete Yorn fan and was stoked when I was browsing around I-Tunes and saw the pre-order of his new album Back & Fourth a month or so ago. I didn’t pre-order, but did buy the album the day it came out, June 16th, burned a copy […]
Todd Snider/The Excitement Plan
My run in with Todd Snider probably happened around the mid-nineties when his comedy tune “Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues” lit up radio stations throughout the country. It was a funny song for the times and I just assumed Todd was some kind of Weird Al parody guy that had scored a cute little radio […]
Cracker/ Sunrise In The Land of Milk and Honey
I went back and listened to all of my Cracker albums before writing this review. They’re a good band. A fun band. And they definitely put on a good live show. (Well, I actually haven’t seen them in about 10 years, but I saw them 3 or 4 times when I was in college.) Turn […]
Hoots & Hellmouth/The Holy Open Secret
When I get a CD from a band I’ve never heard of in the mail for review, a lot of times I trash the band bio that comes along with it. The reason I do this is I’ve found a lot of bands that make good music write bad bios. Or they at least have […]
Steve Earle/Townes
When I first heard Steve Earle was recording an album of all Townes songs I was like, well, guess he took so much flack from his last album, he’s trying to redeem himself with some old time fans. Â But then I realized that Steve probably doesn’t care what his fans think about his artistic endeavors […]