Through a two-and-a-half-decade career, Anders Osborne has consistently proven to be one of New Orleans’ most versatile musicians. Since releasing his debut album in 1989, Osborne has become a Crescent City mainstay, able to vary his sound from edgy Bayou blues (2001’s Ash Wednesday Blues) to introspective soulful folk-rock (2007’s Coming Down). He’s collaborated with […]
Through a two-and-a-half-decade career, Anders Osborne has consistently proven to be one of New Orleans’ most versatile musicians. Since releasing his debut album in 1989, Osborne has become a Crescent City mainstay, able to vary his sound from edgy Bayou blues (2001’s Ash Wednesday Blues) to introspective soulful folk-rock (2007’s Coming Down). He’s collaborated with […]
Brad Pitt’s attack on zombies fails to capture the trend It’s not that World War Z is bad. Any movie with star Brad Pitt and director Marc Forster—whose resume swings from Stranger Than Fiction to Machine Gun Preacher-—can’t be bad. It can, however, be pretty mediocre. Fans of Max Brooks’ novel World War Z would […]
Contemporary folk duo Maureen Andary and Sara Curtin, a.k.a. The Sweater Set, first met as teens in a Washington, D.C. church choir. In the years since, the pair has taken their vocal training and friendship on the road, developing multi-instrument arrangements that include the ukulele, banjo, glockenspiel, and even the kazoo, layered with “elaborate lyrical […]
Enjoy a star-studded trip to 1940s Hollywood with the suave Cary Grant and glamorous Rosalind Russell in a special screening of Howard Hawks’ classic screwball comedy, His Girl Friday. Adapted from Broadway hit The Front Page, the film features a hard-boiled newspaper editor who learns his ace reporter ex-wife is set to marry a bland insurance […]
Often appearing on stage in faded tees and ripped jeans, Gary Allan embodies the homegrown simplicity of country music. Injecting elegance into lyrics laden with manly understatement, Allan’s unpolished voice tells the stories of everyday life, love, joy, and pain. In his latest release, Set You Free, the California native proves that raw, unadulterated emotion takes on entirely new […]
The pun-named Dwight Howard Johnson is neither a hotel chain nor a center for the Lakers, but rather a Charlottesville band. It plays appealing and charming pop rock, drawn from the timeless well of all pop rock bands, while reminding one of the 1990s, when such pop music was actually popular. The most obvious comparison […]
Transcendental whimsy With no less than seven members, spiritual rock group NYMPH blurs traditional musical genres to the point of nonexistence. Deriving their visionary sound from the realm of free-jazz, the Brooklyn-based group weaves their way through pulsating African beats and jazz thrills to ethereal guitar harmonies, providing a musical trip across cultural, artistic, and […]
It’s the perfect time of year to discuss a longstanding moviegoers’ gripe: “The book was better.” Or “they changed the ending.” Or World War Z is an in-name adaptation only. (To be fair, that last statement, sort of uttered by World War Z novelist Max Brooks, isn’t a gripe. It’s the book’s fans who are […]
Everyone has his or her own way of processing information. Some of us think visually; the neurological place where seeing is believing and photographic memories are born. Others have an astounding knack for audio perception, memorizing information primarily with their psychoacoustic faculties. There are those who rely heavily upon numerical data and others who do […]
Hidden monuments Portland, Oregon-based folk collective Balto has been called “the band everyone should have heard of, but nobody has.” All that anonymity may be on the brink of dissipation, as the group heads east with a suitcase full of tunes from its latest EP, Monuments. The album was recorded in an old church over three days in […]