A concept album is an ambitious venture for any band; thinking of a worthy idea is difficult enough, and then there’s the matter of producing an entire album’s worth of quality material that is thematically …
In case you hadn’t realized already, the Mike N’ Molly’s beer garden is truly the place to be for live local music in downtown Champaign these days. It’s spacious and inviting, the PA won’t destroy …
Upon first hearing “Highly Suspiscious,” from My Morning Jacket’s newest LP Evil Urges, one of the — what do you call them? Singles? Whatever a band releases to the internet to preview its forthcoming record …
Psych lovers, beware: If this article is introducing you to The Black Angels, there is reason to heed a real fear that, in the very near future, you won’t be removing this record from the …
Fiery Furnaces and Raconteurs at The Pageant, St. Louis, June 12 Note: Not for the first time, I was one of the only audience members caught obeying the club’s strict “no cameras” policy, and so …
In the pleasantly muddled world of indie music, there are a handful of not-so-descriptive terms that are often branded onto select acts. “Piano rock” is one that gets thrown around a lot, as well as …
Richard Swift is a shapeshifter, a musical sorceror of mythical proportion. Each of his releases shows a mastery of a different affect of pop music, and each one is unique in its own way. Pending …
Gazelle is the new super group project between Jeff Dimpsey, a veteran of such legendary Champaign bands as Hum, Honcho Overload and Poster Children (just to name a few) and Adam Fein of Absinthe Blind, …
There seems to be a tradition in early baroque and classical music of taking another composer’s piece and rewriting it to demonstrate your superior writing, deriving masterful variations from the other composer’s weaker theme. The …
There are fundamental questions to ask before opening a discussion of The Felice Brothers, namely regarding what many consider to be “throwback” music: when an artist creates music that strongly hearkens to music of the …
