Local Spotlight – Photos & Impressions

Salt hill Pub in Lebanon resumed Thursday Blues Nights in late July, with plans to offer the best of local players like Ted Mortimer, Johnny Bishop (who has a new CD on the way), and Ed Eastridge through the fall.  Bobby Gagnier may become the most familiar face by the time the series wraps up [...]

Local Rhythms – Short and Sweet

I may have found an answer to the nagging question of what’s ailing today’s music.
Wordiness.
Harper’s Index recently reported that the average word count of a Top 10 hit in the 1960s was 176; last year, it nearly tripled to 436.
Stop – in the name of brevity.
In 2007 it was  “Irreplaceable,” a 552-word behemoth, according to [...]

Missy Higgins @ Iron Horse

Eric Hutchinson departs with a pseudo-encore (introduces the band, acts like it is over then does one more). Hot stuff, and the factoid of the night is the girls at our table found him via iTunes suggestion – they were sampling Mat Nathanson at the time.

Missy Higgins @Iron Horse

Hasn’t Been Long Enough given a Cher techno treatment. This guy is fun, a showman – a slightly snarky Billy Joel.

Missy Higgins @ Iron Horse

Eric Hutchinson introduces a song introduction – Back to Where I Was – with a request for excitement, which is dutifully granted by the mostly female, highly giddy crowd. Haven’t felt such nitrous energy since Paramore, and certainly not for an opening act.

Missy Higgins @ Iron Horse

Eric Hutchinson gives off a Jaime Cullum vibe, bouncy pop, nice upper register and charming stage presence. A crowd favorite right out of the gate.

Missy Higgins @ Iron Horse

A line in front of Iron Horse and a massive green tour bus hints at what’s inside. It takes a sold out house to demonstrate how awful the sight lines are in this place, made worse by hideously inappropriate funiture. But the music is good and the price is right.

Music Biz Self-Destructiveness Not New

Jeff Balke has a great post on the long history of how the music business created its own problems – well before file sharing arrived on the scene.   They grew fat and happy from easy compact disc money as fans replaced vinyl, attracting financial speculators with no music knowledge, which created a hard stop:
What they [...]

Local Rhythms – Calendar Conundrum

A reader, upset that I’d failed to mention a bluegrass festival near his hometown, recently took me to task for what he perceived as a southern bias in my reporting.
Well, to call Chris Jones “a reader” is bit misleading.  Until last May, when he closed the Middle Earth Music Hall in Bradford, he was a [...]

Green River Wrap-Up

After Lucinda Williams closed out Saturday’s all-day show, Green River Festival organizer Jim Olsen was openly relieved.  “We’ve been ringed with storms all day,” he told the crowd.
But the weather, like the music, went off without a hitch, as fans were treated to one of the most varied bills in the festival’s 22-year history.
Highlights included [...]