Some people claim that size doesn’t matter. If you’re talking about live music, however, audience size is usually considered a key factor. When Mike Ireland & Holler stepped onto the hallowed Schubas stage, there were 10 people in the crowd […]
Honky-tonks are where you find them, sometimes in unlikely spots. Frank’s Steak House is an unlikely spot, evoking working-class elegance with its mirrored walls, leatherette booths and inch-thick sirloins. But every Thursday and Friday night, it reaches out to working-class […]
Ricky Skaggs in No Depression? I can already see some readers scratching their heads — or, more likely, flinging their copies across the room. Skaggs, after all, has been a NashVegas mainstream country fixture for years, and though his latest […]
Though the mythical brass ring of success in the music business is million-selling records, universal fame and adoration, and a jetset, big-spender lifestyle, in reality most musicians would settle for one thing: giving up their day job. To be able […]
The phenomenon of the American musician who’s bigger in Europe than at home is nothing new. In the early decades of this century, it largely turned on race; Ernst Ansermet, the Swiss conductor, opened the floodgates when he heard soprano […]
The wilds of North Jersey, 1988. The guitarist from the questionably named rock ‘n’ roll outfit Government Cheese, hailing from the decidedly lesser wilds of Western Kentucky, turns to the band’s drummer as the pair searches for beer after getting […]
Well, let the backlash begin. Peter and I have been telling interviewers ever since we started this magazine that there was no litmus test, no imposed orthodoxy, no sacred degrees of separation from Uncle Tupelo underlying its content. No, for […]
A handwritten sign at the door announced Whiskeytown would be playing an acoustic set, and though rumors swirled among the few there not to bask in the execrable mediocrity of opener Neal Coty, it was not entirely clear what that […]
Joey Burns crouches over his hollowbody Harmony at the corner of the stage, delay cranked to eerie; behind him, John Convertino stirs and dabs at his kit. Burns and Convertino’s resumes have circulated widely enough: Giant Sand, Friends Of Dean […]
Halfway through his set at the Country Music Legends Fair, Hank Thompson put aside his guitar and told the audience, “I know a lot of you folks have old records and photos and souvenirs. Feel free to bring ’em up […]
