Little Scream and her all-star band put on one of the best shows I’ve seen all year — no small feat for a band I’d only heard one song by prior to the show. And really, I can’t overstate how fantastic this show was. Part of it was her backing band, which consisted of the [...]

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My problem with most ambient musicians is that they don’t really give me a lot to chew on; their music tends to be very airy and light. Tim Hecker is very chewy. No, my only problem with his show is that it might as well have happened in the dark. The audience was easily twice [...]

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I originally planned on seeing Paleo at the Green Lantern, but that fell through when I was the only paying person who showed up to see them. Apparently bands don’t really like to play for $5. So I dashed over to Cosmic Charlies to see El Ten Eleven for a few minutes. I enjoyed it, [...]

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During a sublimely transcendent moment of “Dondante” in My Morning Jacket’s Lexington show, I inhaled strongly and sucked a cough drop quickly into my throat. In the instant I thought “Can I breathe?” I hadn’t recovered enough to really know the answer. Assuming the worst, I realized that — should I have to die before [...]

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I feel that over the next year or so, it’ll be hard for me to avoid slipping into the cliche “look how far Ben Sollee has come” rut when talking about his staggeringly great live shows in front of increasingly large audiences. Of course, me falling into the “remember when” pattern with Ben is kind [...]

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Hours later and I still can’t decide if Record Store Day 2011 was more stressful or more fun. There were moments where I was sure the crowd was too big, but everyone stayed respectful and had a great time. Major thanks to all the bands that played, My Morning Jacket for signing things longer than [...]

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“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun. It might be cliché to start a piece of writing about the Drive-By Truckers with a moment from the American South’s favorite novelist. Yes, DBT is certainly a band obsessed with the past – both literal and imagined – yet [...]

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In the future, look for reviews of small, local bands in the local section. Given Trailblazer’s proclivity for dissonance, I figured his live show might be kind of a mess. After most bands are only weirder live, right? And that bit is at least a little true of Coleman’s shows as Trailblazer. His songs are [...]

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Heypenny were a ton of fun. It’s no surprise that I was really into them midway through my collegiate career. Who would have thought it’d take me nearly five years to see them live? My real takeaway realization was that Heypenny probably have the record for the longest I’ve ever seen a band keep such [...]

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