Mix 2008

Every year at this time, I make a mix disc for family and friends of the best music released over the past 12 months.  This year I’m sharing it with Local Rhythms readers.
Usually it’s a top ten, but there was so much good stuff in 2008, it’s been expanded to 15.
More proof that while the [...]

Local Rhythms – Greening the New Year

It’s time again for New Year’s resolutions.  I’ve decided to make 2009 my year of being green.
I’m newly militant about separating trash and not buying anything that comes in a wax-coated carton.
No more bottled water, when a reusable carafe and a Brita filter does the trick and doesn’t add to landfills.
And when it comes to [...]

Local Rhythms – Best Live Shows of 2008

Music thrived in 2008.  For every show on my best of list, there was at least one I wished I’d seen.  It was also a year of discovery.  Almost half of the top ten includes performers I witnessed for the first time.
These evenings of live music proved to me that the creative spark is alive [...]

Local Rhythms – RIAA Gives With One Hand, Takes With Other

My first thought when I heard the news was, Panera Bread is sure gonna be crowded.
Since 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America sued over 35,000 people for illegal downloading of music from the Internet.  Unsurprisingly, this approach failed to make a dent on music piracy or increase legal music sales.
Now, after six years of [...]

Local Rhythms – Dreaming of An Alt Christmas

Every year at this time I tend to crank up the holiday music. My tastes run to tunes with roasting chestnuts, sleigh rides and flying reindeer, as well as subversive standbys like Jackson Browne’s “Rebel Jesus” and Steve Earle’s “Christmas In Washington.”
But somehow, the old songs aren’t singing like they used to.  After the year [...]

Claremont Middle School Holiday Concert

More Photos of CMS Concert
As she readied the chorus for the final selection of Tuesday’s Claremont Middle School “Holiday Highlights” concert, Ginny Formidoni mouthed one instruction, sotto voce, to her charges,
“Sing loud,” she whispered.
With good reason – at that point, nearly 175 student musicians were assembled, ready to perform a four-song medley of seasonal standards.  [...]

Sky Family – Part Riverdance, Part Revival

For a long time, it looked like Tom Petrofsky would follow his musical dream alone. Tom is a lifetime musician.  As a young man in the 1960’s, he and a friend headed off to San Francisco in search of the great bands of that era.
Unfortunately, they made the trek from Tom’s college in Connecticut to [...]

Local Rhythms – Evenings of Bliss

Last Wednesday, I stepped into Canoe Club hoping for the best, and was rewarded with a seat close to the small stage.
That’s essential to hear the music, and sometimes not a guarantee.
Though the Hanover restaurant hosts live performers every night of the year except Thanksgiving and Christmas, music is one of many elements, not the [...]

Meg Hutchinson Comes Up Full

It’s an axiom of songwriting: suffering begets art.  Personal struggle at the heart of so much great music makes one wonder if some troubadours wouldn’t be happy without misery.
Do they will their sorrow and heartbreak simply to feed the muse?
“Oh God, I sure don’t will it to happen,” laughs Meg Hutchinson.  “If I had a [...]

Local Rhythms – My Kind of Must-See TV

I admit I’m a media junkie, but my habit gives me perspective.  As an unpaid entertainment taste tester, I’ve tried everything.
What I’m saying is – you can trust me.
The endless stream of television provider ads would have you believe that quantity is all that matters.
Comcast claims to have enough on-demand programming for two lifetimes.
DirecTV touts [...]