by Something Else Reviews In many ways, television is a technological wonder these days, what with remote controls, digital signals and DVRs. But, for those who fell in love with the old-school opening theme, it’s not all gravy. Today, you’re more likely to simply see the word LOST charging towardRead More

From lowanthem.com by Mark Saleski I have attempted to describe this before (and I even referred to it in a recent preview of The Low Anthem’s Smart Flesh), but the sensation is a difficult one to get at. Without any sort of documentation, the best I’ve ever been able toRead More

Photograph by Spencer Tweedy Over the course of a remarkable career, both with her family band the Staple Singers and as a solo artist, gospel-soul icon Mavis Staples has bravely explored the frustrations, sorrows and then joys of the African-American freedom fight. But, lest we forget, she can still rockRead More

by Nick DeRiso With “Grinding Man,” a rollicking rapscallion highlight from his Grammy nominated album with Willie “Big Eyes” Smith, we get a winking glimpse into how 97-year-old Pinetop Perkins has kept himself going all these years. You May Also Like: How Muddy Waters Came Roaring Back With ‘Hard Again’

by Something Else Reviews Perhaps Todd Rundgren’s own restive muse — he’s dabbled in every major rock subgenre over the past four decades — simply makes him too difficult to categorize. Maybe Rundgren never stuck with one thing long enough. Somehow, this pop music maverick hasn’t consistently found the widerRead 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 Nick DeRiso Taking on Nina Simone, a singer of dusky persuasiveness, might be foolhardy enough. Remaking this song, a Top 20 pop hit off Simone’s celebrated 1958 debut Little Girl Blue seemed like the worst idea of all. But Canadian singer Kellylee Evans finds a new light, even ifRead More

by S. Victor Aaron “If that guy hits you, I’m not stopping to help you!” “Come on, people, MOVE!!!” “Get your @#$% out of my way!” My wife, God love her, gets a little impatient with her fellow motorists and often has these one-sided conversations with them from behind theRead More

Photograph by Clayton Bozard by Nick DeRiso Haley Dreis likes to fiddle with expectations. You wouldn’t expect a classically trained violinist to dabble in pop music. And you wouldn’t expect the self-confident nuance of “All For You” from someone who only began writing mainstream songs three years ago. Yet sheRead More