The Accidental Band
It’s not quite miraculous that The M’s are touring in support of a new record, but given the group’s origins, it’s a surprise that the band is making public appearances at all.
Tagged: Interviews, Josh Chicoine, The M's
Interviews
Uncovering Iron John
Used in conjunction with author Robert Bly, “Iron John” has come to symbolize gatherings in which men drum and dance in the woods, unleashing their own wild sides. It has been credited as a spark to the “men’s movement,” and attacked as trying to equate the emotional suffering of men with centuries of oppression of women. All of those things carry at least a hint of truth, but they ignore what Bly’s Iron John is really about: the idea that men are worn down and worn out, even as they’ve become more sensitive to the planet and their mates.
Tagged: Interviews, Iron John, Robert Bly
Can’t Escape the Zydeco
The story of Stanley Dural Jr. is the story of a kid who hated his father’s music. The rich irony is that the kid who hated the accordion and zydeco would become the planet’s best-known zydeco performer. His nickname is “Buckwheat,” and the world knows him as Buckwheat Zydeco – a multiple Grammy nominee and the first zydeco artist ever signed to a major label.
Dance Crazes and Democratization
When OK Go turned a backyard rehearsal tape into the video for “A Million Ways,” it was the act of a rock band that’s not afraid to have fun. While critics fawn over dance-rock and new-new-wave acts such as Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and The Killers – with good reason – OK Go is simply one of the world’s most enjoyable bands.
Tagged: Damian Kulash, Interviews, OK Go
War Without End
For the past three decades, Tim O’Brien has been trying to tell true war stories – even though most of them, strictly speaking, are fiction.
Tagged: Fiction, Interviews, The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, War
Pornographer and Whore
Neko Case is a siren whose seductive voice might be the single most alluring instrument in music today – clear, robust, sexy, self-possessed, and expressive, with an endearing hint of nasally imperfection. On her solo albums, that voice is the centerpiece of beautifully arranged country-tinged songs, without a hint of irony. They’re dark, atmospheric, and – at their most world-weary – nearly spectral in their power to haunt. And the 34-year-old singer/songwriter can belt without any sign of strain, or lay on the syrup of an old-time country crooner.
Tagged: Interviews, Neko Case
His Fingers Do the Talking
Junior Brown is about as matter-of-fact as people get. On record and in interview, he sounds as excitable as a corpse. About his upcoming live record, due in September? He says it’s “just to answer some requests. ” About his role as narrator in the new Dukes of Hazzard movie, taking over where Waylon Jennings left off on the TV series? “They just offered it to me.” About the instrument he invented, the double-necked guit-steel? “I’d been thinking about something like that.”
Tagged: Interviews, Junior Brown
Sloppy, Fast, Anarchic … Bluegrass
When Eric Mardis was a teenager, he dreamed the way most adolescent boys dream: “I totally wanted to be a rock star,” he said in a phone interview, “a cross between [Deep Purple’s] Ritchie Blackmore and [Metallica’s] Kirk Hammett.” These days Mardis – who is now 33 – has a rock band and a jazz quartet, but his primary job is not at all what he imagined. He speaks of it almost as if he were at a 12-step meeting – somewhat shamefully: “I play banjo in a neo-whatever bluegrass band.” That would be Split Lip Rayfield.
Tagged: Bluegrass, Eric Mardis, Interviews, Split Lip Rayfield
Passionate – or Pissed? – About Polka
If you ever engage Carl Finch in a discussion about the health or politics of polka, watch out. And do not make any polka jokes. The singer/guitarist/accordionist/keyboardist for the Texas-based band Brave Combo is passionate about his polka, and he can work himself up into such a froth that you might mistake his tone for anger.
Tagged: Brave Combo, Carl Finch, Interviews, Polka
The One-Man Soul Band
It was a recording-studio engineer who turned me on to Martin Sexton. The most incredible live performer he’d ever seen, he said. Don’t mess with the studio recordings, he advised; go to Live Wide Open, his double-disc live set from 2000. Without doing much research, I bought it, listened to it, and was underwhelmed. Then I started reading.
Tagged: Interviews, Martin Sexton
