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A computer, a keyboard and music software in the wrong hands, is not necessarily a dangerous thing, but it can lead to an insufferably banal experience for the unwitting listener. Having said that, unleash someone with the pedigree of Dave Hillis at those ones and zeros, and a music fan could reasonably expect the bar to be raised fairly high indeed. On Skylines, his debut through The Vault Records, Hillis lifts the bar as he...
Damn Glad, Singer/guitarist/songwriter, Matt Kurzban and drummer, Jeff Baker, founding members of the New Jersey based outfit of rocketeers, just slid their new release “Up Comes Down,” under our door, and it’s undeniably an album of solid rock, in unsteady times. The stand out track Blink of an Eye, is the signature tune for the ethos of this record; an uplifting respite from the doom of the past few years, it’s a fists in the...
Don’t ever let Craig Douglas of Neonach, into your kitchen, cause he’ll mess with your shit. You’re there, desperately trying to muster your entry for the Great British Bake-Off, ignoring the fact that there’s literally an ocean between you and your chances, and in waltzes Craig, and he just starts messing with your shit; cause that’s what Craig Douglas does; he messes with shit. He takes things, that others may not necessarily think of as...
Altin Gün – Yol. So, you remember when you first discovered World Music? Perhaps it was something that Peter Gabriel had gotten behind in the early 90’s. You bought a few things with WOMAD written on them, then you realized you were so far behind the curve, and there was so much of it out there; all these other countries had their own music scenes, and you didn’t know what anyone was saying on the...
It’s always tough to review work from people you know, people you love. You vacillate between wanting to shower them with compliments from the perspective of what you know of them as good human beings, and what you’ve seen them do in the past, and also wanting to see clearly what’s in front of you; to be fair and balanced, as the saying goes. I always aim to give people their due, sure, but also...
Oh my God… no, that was Clapton, right?! Remember that story, how a wall in 1960s London was spray-painted with the meme-worthy line, “Clapton is God.”? This was during Clapton’s Yardbirds, John Mayall & Bluesbreakers time, and every guitar player after, including Eddie Van Halen, followed the man and his smooth riffs and blues runs, for years later. Until, of course, Jimi Hendrix entered from stage left, or as we like to call it, Seattle....
Farewell to a Vital Pulse Beat, in the Heart of a Town, The Rex Theater. If you look up the word ”venue” in a random google search, you’ll see references to; a place where something happens, or somewhere organized events take place. Plain and simple, right? So shouldn’t things like hotel conference rooms, the back patio of someone’s house and churches make the list? A rollicking great time can be had by all in many...
Folk music is the eternal sonic vehicle, for not just stories about our ancestors; if we’re smart enough to look closely, we will often find ourselves in there too. Essentially, within the quaint shanties about fishing villages, and tragic storms that may have taken away a sizable chunk of the men-folk, one discovers, they are all songs about working people; tales of working people with soil, salt from the sea, and grease from factory machines...
LA and proud, Ethan Thompson, AKA Alt Bloom, teams up with rapper gnash, to produce a mild-mannered sizzler, “text talk touch” through Big MTN Records. An unabashed summer love song that deserves to live well beyond the warmer months of any year, it becomes the video metaphor for “this” particular summer with it’s socially distanced romantic leads courting through their phones. Checking through some of Bloom’s past acoustic performances, one can see him at times...
