The official date may be June 21, but for me summer starts when the temperature passes 85 and the tops come off pools and cars. Nothing improves a ride in a convertible like some rockin’ tunes, so here are ten songs guaranteed to push you past the speed limit.
We’ll call it my top-down mix [...]
The Roots on the River Festival has a new promoter as it enters the eighth year, but the basic premise is still intact: pack all the music that fits into four days, each capped with a different flavor of Fred Eaglesmith.
The show began in 2000 as a way for promoter Charlie Hunter to quench [...]
Eilen Jewell’s songs seem preserved in amber and channeled from a distant time, her voice wise and weary. When Jewell, who performs next Saturday at the Roots on the River Festival, sings “So Long Blues,” it sounds like Memphis Minnie in 1941, not a 26-year old from Idaho.
Few records generated the kind of buzz [...]
A little over 100 years ago, Thorstein Veblen published “A Theory of the Leisure Class,” and introduced a new term to the popular lexicon. “Conspicuous consumption,” wrote Veblen, happens when rich people spend their money simply to get attention.
That pretty much sums up the big concert market, where idiots routinely drop 500 bucks on [...]
A CD Review
It’s been a long time coming for this, the second effort from Syd. The Norwich native spent much of 2005 in the studio, only to shelve the work last autumn. Rescued by producer Danny Weinkauf (Fountains of Wayne, They Might Be Giants) and freshly mixed by Jeff Thall, “The Way We [...]
A CD Review
Her fragile voice sits somewhere between Norah Jones and a twanged-out Beth Orton, but the similarities end there. Jenny Owen Youngs delivers a sweetly subversive concoction of modern alienation, romantic ennui and deliciously infectious hooks.
Youngs explores technology’s hold on human interaction from a variety of angles. “Voice On Tape” uses answering [...]
A CD Review
Fans of Crowded House should warm up quickly to this record, released last year in Nicholson’s native Australia, and available Tuesday on iTunes (with general release next month).
“Faith and Science” once again demonstrates the ability of performers from Down Under to mine the best of American music. There are traces of [...]
CD Review
Jonatha Brooke channels her inner Todd Rundgren in an effort that’s worlds removed from her folksinger roots, though her busker humor is always in evidence.
“I was so naïve,” she chuckles on the title track (and album opener), plucking out a distracted guitar progression, before shifting to dense, majestic pop. It’s a [...]
Cable monopolist Comcast just announced a change to the local (New Hampshire/Vermont) HD programming lineup, effective June 26.
HDNet, the Mark Cuban-created source for Arrested Development reruns and great live music shows like the V Festival, True Music and concert specials like the Chicago/Earth, Wind & Fire set a few months back, is out. In its [...]
Few area drinking and dining establishments offer as much live music as Lebanon’s Salt Hill Pub, and there’s never a cover charge. Except, that is, when tavern owners Josh and Joe Tuohy’s community spirit takes over.
Once every few months, Salt Hill picks a charity. Their first effort came back in 2004, when [...]
