by Something Else Reviews Over the last few weeks, this merry band of music lovers has offered its varied take on the Year That Was. Now, we winnow it all down. First to go were the personal obsessions (Mark: Mary Halvorson; Pico: Greg Ward’s Fitted Shards), and other worthy entriesRead More

by Mark Saleski I’m trying to remember when it was. It was definitely during a pop music fad that involved a lot of synthesizers and other electrical accoutrements. Maybe it was the New Wave era…or maybe when The Prodigy hit it big. All I know is that I caught thisRead More

by Nick DeRiso Erik Hartley can’t decide about things, and that uncertainty creates an interesting tension on the new EP Not Me Being Nervous. The in-joke ends up being that he’s anything but “not nervous.” Hartley, instead, couldn’t be less settled, with looming questions about girls, about life, about gettingRead More

We begin this series by covering the kind of music most music critics cover when making lists: the Great Mainstream.

by Nick DeRiso It takes a complex, genre-bending singer to fend off the distracting brilliance of fabled guitar-playing Danny Gatton. Maine-based Steve Erwin, who made his name playing around Washington, D.C., pulls it off on the newly re-released Was It Like This. Originally recorded in December 1988 with Gatton, theRead More

by Mark Saleski The Darkness on the Edge of Town tour has taken on a sort of mythic quality, mostly because there has been scant video evidence. This “bootleg” tape unearthed by Camp Springsteen confirms what fans lucky enough to have seen one of the shows have known all along:Read More

In a time of buttoned-down, procedural rock records, Alex Hirsch is still admirably working toward one of those old-school Grand Statements that defies category. Hirsch, whose dad is television and Broadway star Judd Hirsch of “Taxi” fame, brilliantly races through musical subgenres – and personas – on Naturally. That makesRead More

by Mark Saleski It is perhaps too easy to dismiss the work of celebrities. In the case of Bruce Springsteen, there has been much vitriol expressed over his “supposed” blue collar leanings, as if success can (no…must) wipe out your roots. If you look back at this documentary on theRead More

by Mark Saleski To call this group of songs “The Lost Sessions” is to put a slightly misleading spin on things. We all know the story, the one of the huge volume of music that Bruce wrote post-Born To Run with some songs ending up on Darkness On The EdgeRead More

This world of digital sound can be quite tricky. The original line about CDs was that they would provide “perfect sound forever.” Yeah, sure. In their haste to get product to market, the early mastering jobs produced less than stellar results. In the intervening years, we’ve learned a lot aboutRead More