Hot on the heels of Prairie Wind, his acoustic meditation on life and death, Young returns with a scatching commentary on the Bush administration and the Iraqi War. Lest anyone question where Young stands, the opening track lays it out: “Won’t need no shadow man… runnin’ the government. Won’t need no stinkin’ WAR.” Stream Neil […]
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Bruce Springsteen
Leave it to Bruce Springsteen to take on the Pete Seeger collection. He could be the only practicing musician to pull this off effectively with the exception of Bob Dylan who owes some stylistic credit to Seeger as well. After reading a few mixed reviews of this album I was concerned. Seems that some folks […]
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Drive-by Truckers
DBT!… DBT!… DBT!… my favorite rock band since GBV hung the towel over a year ago. The Drive-by Truckers return with their latest release A Blessing and A Curse. While I’m not as emotionally attached to this one as I was 2004’s The Dirty South, I undoubtedly believe this will add yet one more notch […]
Preview The Drive-By Truckers’ “A Blessing and a Curse”
You don’t have to wait until Tuesday to hear the new Drive-By Truckers album. The guitar-slinging masters serve up a fine preview of their forthcoming release: A Blessing and a Curse. A few early test spins show the Trucker’s expanding their sound. Whereas their recent albums have clearly been lyrically and musically inspired by the […]
Best of Winter 2006, a Playlist
The bar has been set high! I’m astounded by the number of great albums that have already surfaced this year. Will Hoge shunned traditional record promotions by leaning heavily on juggernauts MySpace and Purevolume all the way to offering up a free download from the album once every week. Josh Rouse travelled to Spain offering […]
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 […]
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Bruce Robison
There are several interesting releases this week. I’m intrigued by releases from just about all these artists. Though, the only one that I’ve been able to preview that I feel comfortable recommending is Texas-based, Americana singer-songwriter, Bruce Robison’s Eleven Stories. Check out track #2 “Virginia”: [audio:http://www.sustainrecords.com/audio/Bruce%20Robison%20-%20Virginia.mp3] Notable releases for week of April 4, 2006 from: […]
Susan Cagle: The Subway Recordings
I paid my cover – a New York subway ticket – and headed down into the Times Square subway station for this show. While I may have been the only one who was in the station solely to hear Susan Cagle perform, the size of the crowd revealed the extent of her reputation among New […]
Tom’s Pick of the Week, Matt Costa
What’s the deal with surfer-turned-musicians lately? There’s Jack Johnson, Tristan Prettyman and now Matt Costa. Well, diverging slightly, Costa is skateboarder-turned-musician. Regardless of the subtle difference, it seems that he is closely associated with the aformentioned Johnson. You’ll find him on Brushfire Records home of Johnson and pal G. Love. Costa’s “Songs We Sing” mostly […]
The Wood Brothers – Ways Not To Lose
The Wood Brothers released their first official album recently. Until now all that had been available were bootlegs of live shows that were only attainable through generous friends. Their new album is titled “Ways Not To Lose” and was released by Blue Note records, the same label that has claim over bassist Chris Wood’s other […]