Fired up: New Jersey band Blues Traveler is on the road in celebration of the 25th anniversary of its Grammy-winning album, Four. The blues-rock group broke into the mainstream with the record in 1994, playing on “Saturday Night Live,” and opening shows for The Rolling Stones. Now, the record’s hit tracks “Runaround” and “Hook” play […]
Fired up: New Jersey band Blues Traveler is on the road in celebration of the 25th anniversary of its Grammy-winning album, Four. The blues-rock group broke into the mainstream with the record in 1994, playing on “Saturday Night Live,” and opening shows for The Rolling Stones. Now, the record’s hit tracks “Runaround” and “Hook” play […]
Live cast: The popular podcast “Welcome to Night Vale” launched in 2012 as “A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overheard while we all pretend to sleep…” Now with millions of downloads, and four illustrated published volumes, the show is on the road. “A Spy […]
Rounding the corners: In the run-up to recording Interpol’s latest release, Marauder, drummer Sam Fogarino repeatedly asked himself: “How can I make shit swing?” The post-punk veterans were six albums and more than 15 years into their careers, yet had never strayed from the rock influences of their home turf in New York City. Consulting […]
Off the grass: They got their start as a folk duo playing campus events, but today, Mipso’s blend of Americana, bluegrass, and indie pop is filling music halls rather than lecture halls. Since graduating from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2013, the band has grown, and toured in Japan, played with the former chancellor of their alma […]
Brass tactics: Circus-like characters, eye-catching costumes, and a blend of big-band-friendly musical styles make up the exalting sensory overload that is the MarchFourth Marching Band. The 20-member troupe from Portland, Oregon, is a festival staple, and has been tapped for high-profile gigs at the Kennedy Center, The Fillmore, and ESPN’s “ESPY Awards” show. The band’s […]
Anything but tired: Very loud Bay Area doom metal trio Sleep attained underground legend status with a monolithic late-’90s riff monster called Dopesmoker. The long-awaited 2018 follow-up, The Sciences, brought new commercial success and a bit more sonic variation without sacrificing the band’s trademark bongwater-soaked power. Rumor has it that the oft-shirtless guitarist Matt Pike […]
Speaks volumes: Todd Snider has an impressive history with legendary musicians—his discovery by a member of Jimmy Buffett’s band led to a long kinship with John Prine (and helped shape Snider’s smart, witty folk tunes). So it’s perfectly natural that he would dream about Johnny Cash after a co-writing session with Loretta Lynn at Cash […]
It’s been over 10 years since pop group Parachute (formed at Charlottesville High School) found itself sharing a stage with the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift on New Year’s Eve in Times Square. The appearance was a promo for the band’s locally produced debut album, Losing Sleep, which climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard […]
Milestone milieu: It’s been a tumultuous five years for Phosphorescent (née Matthew Houck, left). He fell in love, had two kids, moved to Nashville, and “somewhere along the way, he nearly died of meningitis.” This life-altering period also sourced his critically lauded new album, C’est La Vie, another set of tunes elevated by Houck’s signature […]
The age of social media is rife with oversharing; dominated by a virtual playground where foodstagrams and political Facebook fights abound—and any semblance of privacy is tenuously maintained by CAPTCHAs and digital passwords. Los Angeles band Dawes explores this concept on its latest album, Passwords, by examining how the sociopolitical climate and our personal relationships […]