After Van Morrison’s departure from the group in 1966, Them relocated to Los Angeles and released a string of worthwhile efforts. The group completely revamped their image and sound behind Jim Armstrong’s accomplished guitar work and Ken McDowell’s vocals; the only hold over from the Van Morrison era was guitarist Alan Henderson. Now And “Them” [...]
For everyone who cringed while watching the very-real-life 2005 Beulah break-up documentary A Good Band Is Easy To Kill, the news last year of a 2010 Miles Kurosky solo record on the horizon was akin to the promise of reuniting with an old friend. Picking up aesthetically where Beualh’s swan song, Yoko, left off, Kurosky’s [...]
This is it, folks. This is where the rubber meets the road—the mother of all trucker movies: Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy. The recipe: take Kris Kristofferson (the Rubber Duck), a young Ali MacGraw (in a convertible) and a cranky, curmudgeon state trooper named “Dirty Lyle” (played by Ernest Borgnine) and place them in a hokey, genre-bending, [...]
Most (if not all) of you reading this know a thing or two about the names Phil Spector and Neil Young. But I would wager that the immediate name recognition of Jack Nitzsche, a pivotal force in behind both artists, ranks much lower. Studio wizard/producer, arranger and songwriter, Nitzsche released his own sort of ‘surf’ [...]
Twin Sister leads listeners down a completely new path with Color Your Life, the quintet’s first batch of new recordings since 2008′s stunning Vampires Dreaming with Kids EP. Both releases are heavy on atmosphere, spacial rhythms and knockout vocals that make you forget about everything else that’s going on in pop music right now. Singer [...]
Athens, GA’s Venice Is Sinking are set to release their third full-length, Sand & Lines: The Georgia Theatre Sessions, on June 13th. Recorded live, stripped down in the vein of the Cowboy Junkies Trinity Session using two mics and minimal adornment, Sands & Lines exudes a late-night warmth that begs for the vinyl treatment. In [...]
The best compilations are very often the ones that succeed in contextualizing an experience—be it a genre, a movement, or in this case, a sub-genre within a decade. Taken as a whole the (fantastically titled) ’50s Rockin’ Sci-Fi compilation paints a picture of an alternate reality. Subtitled “Original High Octane Rock ‘n Roll And Hillybilly [...]
Band of Horses third LP, Infinite Arms, hits retail shelves May 15th via their new label home at Fat Possum. We have four pairs of tickets to giveaway to their Greek Theater date Saturday, September 25, 2010. As of right now tickets to the show are exclusively available for purchase through the Greek Theater and [...]
Master At Arms, B. Kramer, caught up with Toronto’s Born Ruffians’ just after their second performance at SXSW. Things soon turned meta. New album drops June 1st via Warp. Words after the jump….
