“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” That old saw has been attributed to everyone from Lester Bangs to Martin Mull to Frank Zappa. While it is debatable who originally said it, the veracity of the statement is undeniable. […]
[Editor’s note: The following review was originally submitted to the Austin Chronicle in August 1999 but was not published; it arrived after the paper had already run a roundup of reminiscences about Liberty Lunch by various writers. Given this issue’s […]
Three guys half an arena away — one behind a small fortress of keyboards, one riding a revolving drum set, and one standing on an Oriental rug — and two cannons. That sums up my first-ever concert: Emerson, Lake & […]
Dublin’s old Olympia Theatre isn’t a place you’d normally picture as a venue for country music. With its exclusive boxes overlooking the stage and ornate Victorian decorations, it’s probably more suited to an opera. Despite this, it’s a good place […]
Two and a half years since the release of Whiskeytown’s sadly beautiful Stranger’s Almanac, leader Ryan Adams quietly surfaced — like that mystic groundhog in Punxsutawney — to perform newly-penned solo material on a midwinter night at New York City’s […]
Donnie Fritts began his lifetime in music as a songwriter and session man in Alabama amid the burgeoning Muscle Shoals soul scene of the 1960s. He got the nickname “Flipside” Fritts because his songs tended to end up on the […]
When Lounge Ax shut its doors in the wee hours of January 16, a chapter in Chicago rock history ended. The scruffy-as-it-was-legendary club on the city’s North Side carved its niche in the indie-rock ’80s and nurtured Windy City bohemians […]
You can’t deny that the Singing Cowboy is a dying breed, but this is getting ridiculous. Within the eight months between July 1998 and March 1999, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Eddie Dean all passed away, leaving Rex Allen as […]
The first time I saw The Band was on a PBS airing of the 1992 Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary Concert (hey, I’m 23, cut me some slack). They performed “When I Paint My Masterpiece”, which quickly became my favorite song […]
In Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where more than a few people own decorative license plates reading “Tobacco Pays My Bills”, you can take the Waughtown Street exit and then maneuver toward the Alvarado Joyeria. That’s a jewelry store, and that’s where […]
