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 […]
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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 […]
In Chicago these days, a band’s mere admission of Uncle Tupelo influence is an act of defiance worthy of respect. Critics and cognoscenti sniff, “Yeah, I’ve heard ’em,” meaning: “Heard one; heard ’em all.” But Mount Pilot’s recent opening slots […]
Mike McGonigal: Damned entertaining Please give Mike McGonigal a regular column. His essay on Harry Smith (and Alan Lomax, and Richard Davies, and Camper Van Beethoven, and Eugene Chadbourne, and Yo La Tengo, and Eleventh Dream Day, and many more) […]
The paint wasn’t even close to being dry on Studebakersfield, Charlie Chesterman’s winsome 1996 collection of meditations on love both lost and found, when he began thinking of what to do next. But not in the context of where to […]
WHITHER WHISKEYTOWN? Raleigh, N.C., band Whiskeytown has undergone yet another lineup change in the aftermath of a fight at a show in Kansas City in late September. Guitarist Phil Wandscher, drummer Steve Terry and bassist Chris Laney are no longer […]
“Most of us like our jobs,” Bill Herzog says, and he isn’t referring to those hours each week he, Joshua Medaris, Chad Shaver and Eric Akre spend together as Citizens’ Utilities. Indeed, the first news he shares isn’t about No […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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