Local Rhythms – Odds and Ends

Shows!
I get giddy when announcements for the summer music season begin to hit.  Two local opera houses have once again ordered up some fine talent for their “pre-season” shows.  In Claremont, a musical pioneer in both rock and country, Leon Russell, performs August 6.  Famous for songs like “Tightrope” and “Out in the Woods,” he [...]

James McMurtry’s Plain Talking

James McMurtry’s songs sketch the lives of characters at the fringes of America. With caustic wit and devastating poetic economy, he measures the distance between the gated communities, and the dead-end dives with “drains in the floor.”
On his latest studio album “Childish Things,” the Texas singer-songwriter turned away from metaphorical storytelling with the blunt [...]

Crooked Still’s New Take on an Old Sound

When Crooked Still perform next Thursday at the Roots on the River “New Faces Night,” fans will hear old-time music done in a very newfangled way. If you love American roots music, you may know their songs – everything from the Sacred Harp hymn “Ecstasy” to “Railroad Bill,” a skiffle tune learned, says bassist [...]

Three Pissed-Off Chicks

Taking the Long Way
Dixie Chicks
By Michael Witthaus
It’s impossible not to view a new Dixie Chicks record though the prism of “the Incident” – singer Natalie Maines’ on-stage denunciation of George W. Bush on the eve of the Iraq War.  The band squarely faces the two-year firestorm born from that event on “Taking the Long Way.”  [...]

Local Rhythms – May 25, 2006

Local Rhythms
By Michael Witthaus
Music is a Family Value
Watching my daughter’s spring concert the other night at Bluff School, I’m reminded of how important it is to start kids early on music. This thought also occurred to me as I listened to some jazz on the hi-fi one cool, pleasant evening recently.
My father was a [...]

Local Rhythms – May 18, 2006

Being a cutting-edge guy and all, I’m naturally inclined towards original music. When this column started, I entertained the idea of not mentioning cover bands at all. Times change, and I no longer draw such a hard line. It’s not simply that there are too many to ignore, I’ve actually developed a [...]

MySpace and Fox Cross-Market Online Video

The first and fifth season of 24 wil become available for download next week on MySpace. Burger King sponsors the effort, which has the first two episodes available for free (along with no-cost content from the Speed and Fuel networks):
“MySpace is the largest video site on the Web with more video uploaded every [...]

Sixty Minutes Chicks Hack Piece

Last night's segment on the Dixie Chicks was the most fact-challenged journalistic hack job I've ever seen on an entertainment entity.  Steve Kroft needed to believe that Natalie Maines' W. smackdown somehow hurt their career, and didn't bother to check the record to see if it jibed with red meat wet dreams.  Specifically, from E! [...]

Dixie Chicks Stream on Best Buy

Taking The Long Way, the latest from the Dixie Chicks, won't hit stores until May 23, but Best Buy is streaming three songs from it, though their weekly ad promised four, so we'll wait and see on that.
"Everybody Knows" is the most upbeat of the previously unavailable two songs ("Not Ready to Make Nice" was [...]

Local Rhythms

Where do you find music? 
A better question may be – where does music find you?
Are you a mobile listener, constantly hitting the preset buttons on the car radio?  Or maybe you’re one of the many who hear a song on a TV show like Grey’s Anatomy or the Sopranos and can’t get it out of [...]