Music
Nickel Creek, Reasons Why (Sugar Hill)
Reasons Why’s release accompanies the pop bluegrass trio’s announcement that it is going on “hiatus,” which many have taken as a euphemism for splitting up. Whatever the case, the […]
The Ying Yang Twins, Chemically Imbalanced (TVT)
For years, the Ying Yang Twins found their musical, social and spiritual home in strip joints. Seemingly every track was about strippers and getting loaded, which isn’t a lot […]
Various Artists, New Orleans: Rebuild, Restore, Rejoice (Mardi Gras Records)
This compilation of tracks from albums on Mardi Gras Records is good, simple fun, leaning heavily on brass band tracks by Dejan’s Olympia Brass Band, Rebirth, the Soul Rebels […]
Tom Waits, Orphans (Anti)
Do you need a three-disc Tom Waits album? Probably not. After a decade of exploring the sonic dark, dusty holes Swordfishtrombones and Frank’s Wild Years implied existed, he has […]
Honky Tonk Disciples, Kickin’ Up Dust (Independent)
The best honky-tonk music sounds like someone’s life boiled down to lines that are poetic in their simple precision. Very good honky-tonk simply evokes a working class life that […]
Pat McLaughlin, Horsefly (Creamstyle)
Pat McLaughlin makes soulful, country-inflected rock ’n’ roll sound so easy and natural that it seems like every city ought to have at least a few musicians like him […]
The Tomatoes, Trendy (Independent)
When the Tomatoes started as the Joneses, having a sound and lyrics rooted in late 1970s British punk and new wave was entertaining and charming, if a little anachronistic. […]
Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint, Hot As a Pistol, Keen As a Blade (Hip-O DVD)
By now, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint’s The River in Reverse has been pretty thoroughly celebrated, most recently with a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Album. We know […]
Michael Streissguth, Johnny Cash (Da Capo Press)
Johnny Cash has been more commercially active in his latter and posthumous years than he was for much of the ’80s and ’90s. His marriage to June became an […]
Collateral Damage
Sam Price of Otra came to New Orleans to play the Voodoo Music Experience. Now living in San Francisco, he had to pack for a flight and to save space, […]
