One of the first Todd Snider songs I heard was “Talking Seattle Grunge Rock Blues.” For those unfamiliar, the song satirizes the dying days of grunge, when it started to be consumed by the same excesses that helped it […]
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It’s the time of year when every music publication, and some non-music publications looking to fill column inches, starts turning to their “best of the year” lists. While some people hate these, I love them because it gives me […]
In the hundreds of concerts I’ve been to, the onstage quote I most repeat came courtesy of Mollie O’Brien, who introduced a forlorn love song by saying “We’re Irish. We’re not happy unless we’re sad.” In some ways, the […]
People can (and if you have ever been to AmericanaFest, you know do) debate what the “roots” of Americana are. But I think in years to come, it’s going to be harder to argue what artist did the most to […]
While the majority of crowdfunding campaigns you see on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are true funding campaigns, there are also a significant minority that are more like pre-orders with perks. It’s true that crowdfunding fees aren’t cheap, but they’re […]
The pandemic has brought out a number of themes among songwriters. Songs of isolation and desolation. Songs of depression. Tons of songs about politics. Even quite a few about reconnecting through disconnecting. But there haven’t been a lot of songs […]
As I write this, I am preparing to leave for what promises to be the most unusual AmericanaFest ever. As this goes live, many of you will just be returning from what was hopefully an enjoyable one nonetheless. While […]
One of the things I love most about writing Crowdfunding Radar is finding young artists few have heard of (myself included) and boosting the signal for their first album, or first professionally produced album. That’s what most people think of […]
Over the past few months, this column has been built around themes. This isn’t intentional but, instead, a result of my looking at the dozen or so campaigns I toss in my “maybe” folder at the end of a […]
In my last column, I wrote about the multinational nature of Americana music. Because my mind sometimes leaps to weird places, it made me spend these last two weeks thinking about place. Specifically, how place affects music. In some […]
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