by Mark Saleski Superfluous. Meaningless. Pointless. Redundent. Obligatory. No, I haven’t been playing with my thesaurus. These are just some of the words that are often used to describe live recordings. You May Also Like: How Tesla’s ‘Real to Reel’ Set Redefined the Classic Rock Cover Album

by Tom Johnson I am fully prepared to admit that I am wrong when I am wrong. I’m just not wrong that often, not about music. But, in this case, I’ve been wrong about John Mayer. You May Also Like: Thom Yorke – Spitting Feathers (2006): On Second Thought Metallica’sRead More

by Mark Saleski While many “serious” jazz fans will turn up their precious noses at the jazzification of pop tunes, we here at SomethingElse! steadfastly believe that life is too short to be keeping that bow tie so tight. Sure, we love us some Miles and ‘Trane, but that doesn’tRead More

by Something Else Reviews It’s true, as Randy Newman once impishly sang, they were six fine English boys who knew each other in Birmingham. After that, things got tricky for the Electric Light Orchestra. Despite an impressive string of 1970s hits, they became an easy target. People knocked the strings.Read More

by Something Else Reviews Call them a guilty pleasure. (We have.) But the truth is, there’s more to Hall and Oates than the sum of their blow-dried caricature. So, we set about looking for tunes that made some points: That they brilliantly connected the dots between new wave and andRead More

by Something Else Reviews We attempted to give ourselves some cover by assuring one another that Spyro Gyra started out more in the vein of Weather Report than, say, David Sanborn. We really did. But, after pulling out the actual albums, it didn’t take long to see how baldly ridiculousRead More

by Mark Saleski Lots of review sites have already posted their best-of lists for 2010. We here at SomethingElse! are still in heavy consideration mode. Every single evening for the past couple of weeks we have been locking ourselves into the SomethingElse!Study™ with our slippers, smoking jackets, top-shelf brandy, andRead More

NICK DERISO: There are funny stories from when the Goo Goo Dolls were nobody. These tales were, before “Dizzy Up the Girl” made them matter, just about the only thing that might help you forget that dumb band name. Almost. The band will talk about the time in Raleigh, N.C.Read More

NICK DERISO: This anthology — perfectly subtitled, “How the Time Does Fly” — was a great place to sit for spell and ruminate on the distant twangy past. Flying Fish included 18 tracks culled from nine of Hartford’s brilliant, throwback banjo records. His brand of riverboat bluegrass stayed interesting —Read More

NICK DERISO: This is a woman who could fall to whispery sweet nothings, even from the highest precipice, effortlessly. Start with “Something Cool,” issued on Capitol in 1955 and recorded with Pete Rugolo — Stan Kenton’s one-time musical director — and an orchestra. June tumbles, she sidesteps and old Pete,Read More