// Category Archive for: Music

Hanson Is Cool. . . Seriously, Part One

By Brenna Chase

Photo credit:
http://boston.com/

To celebrate the upcoming release of Hanson’s newest album, Shout It Out, and to commemorate their recent “5 For 5” concerts, here is part one of our series on Hanson. Yes, Hanson.

Unless you are a Hanson fan, you may not be aware of these simple facts:
1. Hanson is still alive.
2. All three of them are of the male gender.
3. They are still together as a band

Allow me to clear this up for you. Yes, Hanson is very much alive and writing and performing songs—successfully enough, in fact, to make a living from it. Though you may assume they went out of style back in 1998 (if they were ever really “in style” at all), their new material is actually better than most of today’s mainstream pop music.
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Bob Dylan’s “Wilderness Years”

By John Lane

“Towards the end of the show someone out in the crowd. . . threw a silver cross on the stage. Now usually I don’t pick things up in front of the stage. Once in a while I do. Sometimes I don’t. But I looked down at that cross. I said, ‘I gotta pick that up.’ So I picked up the cross and I put it in my pocket. . . And I brought it backstage and I brought it with me to the next town, which was out in Arizona. . . I was feeling even worse than I’d felt when I was in San Diego. I said, ‘Well, I need something tonight.’ I didn’t know what it was. I was used to all kinds of things. I said, ‘I need something tonight that I didn’t have before.’ And I looked in my pocket and I had this cross.”
—1979 Bob Dylan interview, from Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisited, by Clinton Heylin

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Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks

By Less Lee Moore

After all the articles I’ve written, after all the mix tapes and CDs I’ve made, after all the years of continual and ridiculous fangirling over Sparks. . . do I really need to convince you that they are one of the most wonderful bands of the last 40 years?

If only there were some sort of written chronology of their illustrious career, perhaps one that covers the band’s history, album by album, with salient or illuminating quotes from those who have known, followed, and worked with the band from its inception to the present day. . . it would just make things so much easier.

Thankfully, writer Daryl Easlea has answered my cries for help and written Talent Is An Asset: The Story Of Sparks.
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Howe Gelb, ‘Sno Angel Winging It (Live) CD + DVD

By J Howell

A few years back, I read about what at the time seemed like the most bizarre thing I’d ever heard of: a Howe Gelb record that featured the Giant Sand mainstay with a Canadian Gospel Choir.

Now, I’d been a Giant Sand fan for a while at that point. I’d seen Gelb solo live a couple of years before, opening for John Parish. During his set he improvised a song about the wobbly fan onstage; at one point he even played guitar with his hands while banging on the piano with his feet. His only instructions to the soundman that night were, and I quote, “Can you make this guitar loud as fuck?”
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It’s White Flag’s World, We Just Live In It: An Interview With Pat Fear

By Less Lee Moore

Recently we’ve been treated to new music from the venerable White Flag, an excellent EP called Keepers Of The Purple Twilight. Released on Target Earth in March of this year, all five songs are fantastic, featuring the White Flag hallmarks of clever, witty lyrics, which are often belied by hooky, but rocking tuneage.

One intriguing factor is that lyrically, the tunes are pretty introspective, perhaps pondering where a band like White Flag, who has been consistently making music but continually underrated over the years, fits into this weird world of American Idols and Justin Biebers.

If you haven’t been paying attention to White Flag, we’re here to help fill in those gaps for you. What follows is a conversation with singer, guitarist, songwriter, and main Flag-waver Pat Fear about the history of the band, including just a few of the “28 years of stories” he’s accumulated about punk rock, playing Greenland, The Shaggs, Os Mutantes, Gasatanka Records, and being the most connected band in the universe.
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I Haz A Flavor: Context

By Matt Keeley

Not too long ago, I read an essay about context in journalism from Terry Heaton’s PoMo Blog. It’s very much in the same vein as the Popshifter Manifesto and the Anti-Snark Manifesto that launched The Believer.

There’s something to be said for this, particularly when there seems to be so much criticism in criticism. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it often seems less like helpful guidance and more like hobby-horsing.
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Shad, TSOL

By Matt Demers

When an acclaimed artist manages to dodge the sophmore album curse, it almost becomes a race to see when he or she is going to screw up. Each successive album becomes a nail-biter, with fans and critics alike hoping that this album won’t be the CODA of the artist’s discography, condemned to ridicule and revulsion.

Listening to rapper Shad’s prior two albums, you’d think karma would be against him. 2005’s When It’s Over and 2008’s The Old Prince are cornerstones in Canadian hip-hop, and represent an intelligent artist whose sound is maturing. This year’s TSOL, released on May 25, looked to be a next step for Shad: he had perked listeners’ ears with The Old Prince‘s catchy tunes and deep message, and now had a stage to define himself. This was his chance to emerge from his London, Ontario beginnings and show people what he was made of.

And thank God he didn’t screw up.
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John Lennon: Rare and Unseen DVD

By John Lane

The problem with the release of The Beatles’ Anthology video in the late ’90s is that it has spoiled Beatles fans the world over. Add to that the ever-flowing river that is YouTube, which has made curiosity-seekers even more complacent. Want to see a Beatles 1966 press conference? Bingo, with the click of a button you have your pick.

Perhaps it is the veritable abundance of organized material available to the average and dedicated fans that makes the DVD release of John Lennon: Rare and Unseen all the more disappointing and confusing. If I was in the eighth grade and had not yet seen the release of the Anthology or the birth of YouTube, then I might consider this DVD to be a kick. As it stands, maybe I’m just too jaded.
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Kinks Kommentary: CD, DVD, And Live Reviews

By Ann Clarke

My fandom with the Kinks goes back as far as pre-school age. They are the reason I love and obsess over music as much as I do, and they raised the bar of excellence for my tastes to follow throughout my life.

They are not a recent fad with me. I didn’t decide they were great once I heard The Village Green Preservation Society, like bullshitting journalists out there claim to give themselves street-cred. I even obsessed over them during the ’80s when it wasn’t cool to like them! So, my reviews come from a lifetime commitment of love and knowledge. . . which are going to be exceedingly honest. The following reviews are listed in chronological order based upon when I first observed them.
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Arcadia, So Red The Rose Special Edition

By Less Lee Moore

One would think that with so many Duran Duran CDs, at least six Duran Duran DVDs, and a box of VHS tapes, I’d have enough to satisfy me. But as Hamlet used to say, it’s “As if increase of appetite had grown/By what it fed on.” And if you think that sounds pretentious, you should listen to Arcadia’s So Red The Rose.

Now now, calm down. I kid. I kid because I love. For those who haven’t been Duranies since the dawn of the ’80s, I’ll fill you in: Arcadia was a side project of Duran Duran members Nick Rhodes, Simon LeBon, and Roger Taylor. The band came to fruition in 1985, after the release of Duran Duran’s Seven and the Ragged Tiger album.
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