Category Archives: Music

Todd Snider walks on stage in goofy hat, trusty guitar, barefoot but also with his equally raggedy dog, Cowboy Jim, who promptly lies down and listens to these songs and stories one more time. “It don’t get folkier than bringing your @#%ing  dog!” Snider declares to the appreciative audience at the Birchmere Music Hall and [...]

The poet and writer Chris Desjardins created the Flesh Eaters in the heyday of L.A. punk scene of the late 1970s, enlisting many of his friends to be among the revolving roster in the band over a handful of albums. The most potent lineup was the one in 1981 that produced the band’s strongest album [...]

It was the 10th Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, but winners Emilio and Gloria Estefan represent two firsts — the first married couple to be so honored, and the first of Latin heritage. The award comes with a presentation with a big Congressional delegation in Washington and an all-star concert at the [...]

It was an auspicious moment in Jacksons history Friday, happening in a snowy and frozen remote corner — a rural Minnesota casino, in one of just a couple of scheduled U.S. dates this year. Only two days later, a world of Michael Jackson fans would be confronted with some ugly accusations in a long, thoughtful [...]

Days before a new album was to come out, a week before another arena tour, Weezer played the cozy Black Cat in Washington, D.C. Wednesday for a Sirius XM broadcast Thursday, and naturally the free ticket giveaway brought a line down the block to the venerable 700-capacity club. As well-positioned for maximum promotion as it [...]

The stage couldn’t be much more bare than it was for James McMurtry’s return visit to The Birchmere Music Hall. A couple of guitars, a table with a bottle of water and that’s it. McMurtry’s songs as well are often as stark, painting indelible scenes of domestic impasse, bleak pictures of heartland economic woe and [...]

A whirlwind tour in Spain with Charlie Sexton playing the whole of The Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls” may not be the best practice for a solo tour, but it may have given Chuck Prophet a little extra slashing on his acoustic guitar at the start of a quite different tour. It was a solo tour, [...]