Sep 22, 2010,
By Blair Jackson
Offhand, Michael Franti and Spearhead would not seem to be likely candidates to land songs in the Top 20 and become a popular headliner. After all, the tall, biracial, dreadlocked, tattooed, perennially barefoot Franti has been dancing (literally) around the periphery of what we might call “popular” music since the mid-’80s. ...
Sep 9, 2010,
By Bryan Reesman
Neil Kernon is a man driven by passion. He has worked with acts ranging from Queen to Hall & Oates to Cannibal Corpse, collaborating with musicians he likes, regardless of the dollar signs attached to them. Based in Chicago since 1997, the British native says he has worked on more than 500 albums, including at least 350 that he has produced.
...
Sep 9, 2010,
By Barbara Schultz
The electronic press kit for Mavis Staples’ new album, You Are Not Alone (Anti, out September 14), includes video of Staples and her producer, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, talking about the sessions in Wilco’s Loft studio in Chicago. “This session for me was the most joyful and uplifting and spiritual,” Staples says. “I feel this was meant to be.”
...
Sep 8, 2010,
By Barbara Schultz
Depending on whom you ask, The Smiths were either the most important British indie band of the ’80s—bringing great guitars back to a synth-weary new-wave audience—or they were self-indulgent posers who disdained their own fans. Love them or hate them, The Smiths made quite an impression when their eponymous first album was released in 1984.
...
Sep 8, 2010,
By Matt Gallagher
In 2008, drummer/guitarist/songwriter Stacy Jones reconvened American Hi-Fi, the powerhouse pop-rock band he formed in Boston in the late ’90s, to record Fight the Frequency...
Aug 17, 2010,
By Blair Jackson
Even though Los Lobos have been around for more than 35 years and cut more than a dozen albums—each a gem in its own way—every trip to the recording studio is still an adventure for this band. That was certainly the case for their newest disc, Tin Can Trust, the group’s first album of original material in four years, and their first on the Shout! Factory label. ...
Aug 17, 2010,
By Sylvia Massy
I found it up in an oven-hot attic in the middle of summer. The place reeked of bird crap. I was rummaging for treasure in an old music store, tip-toeing around in an area that was strictly off-limits to anyone but shop personnel...
Aug 4, 2010,
By Barbara Schultz
It’s still pretty surprising that Dwight Yoakam became a country music star. He was playing working-class bars and punk clubs in L.A., performing his original songs and classic-country covers for old-schoolers and college kids at a time when the hits coming out of Nashville were lush, overproduced...
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NAMM 2011: Fairlight CMI
State of NAMM 2011