I’ve heard many chefs wax poetically about how their success came not from 10,000-hour-developed technique or an encyclopedic knowledge of the world’s cuisines, but rather from the restraint needed to let really good ingredients showcase themselves. I get that same sense of coaxing the beautiful out of the basics from the latest album from Seattle-based […]
Mayer’s Playlist for Fall 2024
Give It To Me One Last Time, Jeremie Albino (from the Easy Eye Sound release Our Time in the Sun) Canada’s Jeremie Albino traveled to Nashville to record an album steeped in Memphis and Muscle Shoals soul. In Nashville, Albino teamed with Dan Auerbach to create an outstanding album that has a retro feel without […]
Loose Cattle – Someone’s Monster
Everyone is someone’s monster. That’s the premise of New Orleans musical duo Kimberly Kaye and Michael Cerveris, and their band Loose Cattle, on their new album. Although it could have been the theme for a Halloween release, the pair focused not on the monsters but on how people deal with them and, sadly, how society […]
Kelley Mickwee on Ramen Bowls and Her Path to Songwriting
Austin by way of Memphis musician Kelley Mickwee talks about touring with her tour companion and shares the full circle moment behind one of the songs on her new album.
Monday Morning Video – Matt Sucich
New York City’s Matt Sucich played some under-the-radar gigs around town earlier this year. These shows, in small clubs and generally not advertised, were lively and fun. Sucich and company clearly relished being able to play with limited pressure and expectations. If only they had captured the kinetic energy of those performances… Turns out they […]
Elegy – a Premiere from Susan Cattaneo
“My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty” sings Susan Cattaneo in her latest single, but her reference to the patriotic anthem is anything but celebratory. Rather, as her song title suggests, it’s a statement about the decline of discourse and civility in America. More to the point, Cattaneo isn’t optimistic. “Once a beauty, […]
Teddy and the Rough Riders – Down Home
If you’ve been to Nashville recently you know the city has grown like a weed. Whether you’re in the music industry, the medical industry, or the bachelorette party industry, everyone is from somewhere else. Everyone, that is, except Teddy and the Rough Riders front men, Jack Quiggins and Ryan Jennings. They actually grew up just […]
Eric Bibb – In The Real World
Happy Halloween! All right, now that’s out of the way let me say that there are different kinds of blues musicians. There are blues rockers who make their reputations with searing guitar solos and there are blues bar bands who may be great musicians but whose focus is making sure you have a good time. […]
Garrett Owen – Memoriam
The words “surprising” and “folk music” rarely appear together in the same sentence. There are plenty of good reasons for that. Perhaps the most common is just that people like what’s familiar. Most artists are trying, at some level, to perform music their fans like. So picking up where you left off the last time […]
“Big Dreams” – a Video Premiere from Tyler-James Kelly
Tyler-James Kelly is known to many as the former singer/songwriter/guitarist for late, great Providence, Rhode Island rock band The Silks. With his debut solo release, however, Kelly takes his talent in an entirely different musical direction. Dream River hearkens back to the days of Willie and Waylon, a glorious collection of classic country songs brought […]