THE ALBUM OF THE MONTH: The Stax 50th Anniversary Celebration The Stax sound is one of American music’s greatest legacies. one of the greatest legacy’s in American music. With Booker T & the MGs — a house-band so good that they could score a #1 song on their own (with the instrumental “Green Onions”) as […]
Justin Trawick, On the Radar
This past Friday night I caught Last Train Home performing at IOTA (Arlington, VA) for my fourth time live. I was a little bummed that the opening act The Commons had been moved to Saturday night having heard great things about them. To my surprise and delight, a local cat named Justin Trawick stepped in […]
Adam Hood, a Twangville Favorite
With 60% of the votes, Twangville readers chose Alabama native Adam Hood‘s Different Groove as the favorite new album in last week’s poll. Here’s a playlist of videos both old and new to commemorate the honor.
George… Giving It Up for Neil Young
In words far greater than anything I could come up with, my father-in-law (George) had this to say about Neil Young’s recent retrospective: Please tell Tom that the Starbuck’s edition of Neil Young’s live retrospective in Canada is a spectacular tour de force of a writer and player who’s ear hears melody lines and chord […]
Wilco & More, Album Previews
Wilco, ‘Sky Blue Sky’ With hints of Southern California folk-rock reminiscient of the Eagles, Wilco is back with its sixth studio album. I may be alone in this thinking, but I’m relieved to hear less ‘experimentation’ in this release. With the exception of a few songs, 2004’s A Ghost is Born was not for me. […]
Grant-Lee Phillips & More, Album Previews
Grant Lee Phillips “Soft Asylum (No Way Out)” Grant-Lee Phillips, Strangelet (Zoe/Rounder) Out with his fifth solo recording titled “Strangelet”, Grant-Lee Phillips looks to cosmic abnormalities to inspire a “record for strange times”. Check out the Grant-Lee Phillips’ MySpace profile for song previews. File under: Rock, Acoustic, Alternative. ALSO LOOK FOR: Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, […]
Grace Potter & The Nocturnals, The SXSW Encore
Here’s a short clip of the encore Grace Potter and Scott Tournet belted out as described on my SXSW Recap. I must have been standing just to the left of the cameraman. Great to see someone captured this. I can’t tell you how much better it sounded live. Also, note the glass of scotch Potter […]
Low Stars, On the Radar
Harmony, harmony, harmony. Apparently, its back in style and it sounds great. Witness foursome Low Stars with their debut album. I know what you are thinking… these guys are a CSN ripoff. You’d be right, but they don’t hide from this. In fact, they embrace it. “We wanted to make an authentic-sounding record that was […]
Happy Holidays
LA band Shurman offer up this original holiday gem, “Santa You Can Skip Me This Year.”
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Josh Ritter
The Animal Years has been highly anticipated for some time now. You’ll find this album reminiscent of the folkier side of Bruce Springsteen and more recently Ryan Adams but with better vocals, at least in my opinion. So far this year, this is the best Folk album I’ve listened to. A full album stream is […]