Guy Clark said that money won’t buy you love or homegrown tomatoes. He could have added seeing Tuba Skinny live to that list. In case you’ve missed it, Tuba Skinny is a musician collective known for their live performances busking in the streets of New Orleans. Drummer and vocalist Erika Lewis is part of the […]
Natalia M. King – Woman Mind Of My Own
Brooklyn-born, Paris-resident Natalia M. King has taken a somewhat circuitous route in developing her musical style. Originally thinking she did not want to play jazz or blues, King started delving into what influenced the music of her youth. She also embarked in a physical, geographic journey to discover herself. It all came together when she […]
Birds Of Play – Murmations, Volume 2
Musical inspiration comes from many sources, but life experience surely has to rank at the top. You’d be hard-pressed to find lives lived to the degree of friends Alex Paul, Eric Shedd, and Jack Tolan. So when they decided to trade-in their outdoor, world-traveling, adventurous lifestyle for equally lucrative careers as musicians, they had some […]
Joshua Rilko – Lost Soul/Rock & Roll
All that time with no gigs to play has resulted in some really good music being written. The latest example of that comes from Joshua Rilko, founding member of Lindsey Lou and the Flatbellies, and mandolin-about-town for the likes of Sierra Ferrell, Billy Strings, and others. He came up with 11 new songs, about half […]
Yonder Mountain String Band – Get Yourself Outside
Some bands stay fresh through a process of having two or three core members and a rotating lineup of additional musicians and collaborators. Others have a more stable roster and view the infrequent change as a breath of fresh air and insurance against getting stale. Such is the case with Yonder Mountain String Band, who […]
VanWyck Video Premiere – Maybe, Maybe Not
Singer-songwriter VanWyck started taking notice of all the people adrift, washing up on the steps and benches of her native Amsterdam. Realizing the gap between their demons and the ones we all fight is narrow, she started writing a story, a landscape, an alternate reality where everyone has a safe space, a place to recover […]
Good Morning Bedlam – Lulu
Rochester, Minnesota-based Good Morning Bedlam says, “we want to surprise our audience.” Ostensibly a folk music trio, they accomplish that feat admirably on their latest album, Lulu. The record careens between indie folk and speed-grass, with side trips to Balkan jazz, klezmer, and Roaring 20’s pop music. One thing that does remain constant is the […]
Sarah Borges – Together Alone
The human psyche is programmed to take comfort from things that are familiar. That plays out in the new record from Sarah Borges, Together Alone. She, and long-time collaborator Eric (Roscoe) Ambel, took the chaos of the pandemic, stitched together an impossible-to-repeat remote recording routine, and produced a record that’s just the Sarah Borges music […]
Sarah Shook & the Disarmers – Nightroamer
One of my musical discoveries during the lockdown was Sarah Shook & the Disarmers. Their brand of pounding country punk was the perfect soundtrack with which to give fate the middle finger. And underneath the attitude, there were a lot of good songs. So I was looking forward (deservedly so, it turns out) to their […]
Lord Nelson – Transmission
It’s an oft-attempted, but less often achieved, feat to capture the live sound of a band on a studio album. It’s a shame, because there are many groups that consistently kick it up a notch when they’re in front of a crowd. One of those is Charlottesville, VA-based Lord Nelson. They thought they had the […]