Greg Lehman – Finding a perfect album is rare. It is even rarer to find a perfect album from a band I’ve never heard of. And it’s “dinosaur steak meat rare” that the album is so perfect that I have to listen to it again and again in its entirety.
Gregory Heller – I’m pretty sure the first time I saw the Rebirth Brass Band was at the Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans, in 2008. But having traveled to the Crescent City many times in the last two decades, I could have seen this musical institution in the French Quarter, or maybe at the Maple Leaf, where they have a regular gig, those earlier memories obscured in a swirl of bourbon and Abita.
Eugene Buonaccorsi – The odd poetry of a Valentine’s Day show. While the holiday is an invented facade of meaning that exists to promote spending, the music at Neumos February 14 was heartfelt and raw in a way that greeting card Cupids and boxed chocolates can’t capture.
Marcus Shriver – Montana band Wrinkles’ has an aesthetic that resides somewhere between a Wes Anderson film a good Dream Pop band. Meanwhile, their bill mates Albatross play folk-inspired punk rock.
Marcus Shriver – With an old, oaky sound that recall’s Bob Dylan’s signature style mixed with a touch of the new world alt-country asthetic, Joe Pug opened for The Devil Makes Three earlier this month at the Paramount Theatre, seemingly assuming the crowd wasn’t there to see him.
