It’s Saturday morning at Merlefest in late April 2007, and the main stage is a whirlwind of rapid-fire musical collaborations. Leonard Podolak of Canadian string band the Duhks is playing ringmaster to what has been billed the “New Generation Super […]
This issue’s Screen Door piece on the reopening of Houston’s venerable Cactus Records store got me to thinking about a lot of the other record stores that have meant something to me at one point or another over the past […]
“Back in Seattle, the sun is setting over the Sunset and Tractor Taverns on Ballard Avenue, over Puget Sound and the ferryboats motoring to the islands, over the Olympic mountains silhouetted in the western sky. It’s been an unforgettable nine […]
At first blush, this seems a bit presumptuous: An artist compiling a tribute album to himself? That appears to be the case with Wounded Knee, which collects Tom Russell songs rendered by the likes of Johnny Cash, Dave Van Ronk, […]
So it wasn’t enough that we went and put a chart-topping (well, #2 on the pop charts, anyhow) indie-rock band on our cover a couple issues ago. We had to go follow it up by putting a chart-topping mainstream-country artist […]
The second Barsuk release from Seattles Rocky Votolato follows in-step with his 2005 disc Makers, an engaging small-scale slice of acoustic/roots-based rock n roll. There are echoes of a lot of other voices in Votolatos crooning Ryan Adams strains on […]
If there’s one thing pretty much guaranteed at a Raul Malo live show — besides being treated to perhaps the finest vocal instrument in all of contemporary popular music — it’s an overarching demonstration of stylistic variety. Never a natural […]
The Cowboy Junkies’ early efforts were distinguished in large part by their internal consistency in tone and content: the bluesy urgency of Whites Off Earth Now, the hushed tones of The Trinity Session, the countryish charm of The Caution Horses. […]
It all starts, and ends, with the voices. Shorthand attempts to classify the Avett Brothers usually go something along the lines of “punk bluegrass” or “thrash folk” or “high-energy hillbilly.” None of which are necessarily improper; Scott and Seth Avett […]
“We’ll know when we get there/If we find mercy,” Jay Farrar sings in “The Picture”, the second track on The Search, Son Volt’s fifth album. If in fact the record’s title is a clue as to its journey, that lyric […]
