by Tom Johnson You just don’t think of too many great guitarists in indie-rock. It’s practically built into the genre to not emphasize your skills. So what a refreshing treat a band like Built To Spill is where they most definitely fall into that meaningless “indie rock” category (since theyRead More

by Tom Johnson This spunky singer, 19 years old at the time, was a lot smarter and had a much more mature ear than her age indicated. You May Also Like: Chairmen of the Board – Greatest Hits (1973): Forgotten Series Just Us, “I Can’t Grow Peaches on a CherryRead More

by Tom Johnson Even before Guided By Voices split on New Year’s Eve 2004, some fans were pining for the old days — back when Robert Pollard and company crudely recorded in a basement on cassettes into a boombox, throwing caution to the wind and making lo-fi masterpieces that confoundedRead More

A band reunites, and fans complain that the results don’t really sound like their older material. This time, Living Colour almost sounded too much like it.

Guitarist and vocalist Steven Wilson seems to have split his pop sensibility off from his “other” band, Porcupine Tree, so they could focus more on delving into darker subjects with heavier music. Blackfield, his project with Israeli singer Aviv Geffen, is more of an outlet for his more, um …Read More

by Tom Johnson This is an album I grew so comfortable with so quickly that it nearly slipped my mind that it came out only in 2004 and is actually not an album I grew up listening to. Granted, Phillips has hardly changed his MO since disbanding Grant Lee BuffaloRead More

by Tom Johnson I awoke at 3 a.m. and that was it. My sleep was over. I laid awake for hours, mentally shaking an invisible, frustrated fist at the darkness. It wasn’t the first such night; it won’t be the last. You May Also Like: Richard Turgeon, “Car Crash” (2019):Read More

by Tom Johnson Spinning up Mercurial was like jumping in a time machine set for somewhere around 60-75 years ago. The Asylum Street Spankers bravely blazed their own trail far outside of mainstream music, offering pre-Charlie Parker swing jazz and jump-blues that once kept the flappers cavorting across dancefloors allRead More