American Aquarium’s last full-length album, 2009′s Dances for the Lonely, is full of Springsteen-esque rock and Hold Steady hooks. It ropes you in from the first few chords of the first track. It won me over pretty quick, and placed number three on my Top 20 of 2009. Their newest release, Small Town Hymns, is [...]
I’ve been listening to the Drive-By Truckers for maybe six years now, and they are one of my favorite bands of the last decade. I’ll admit my point of entry was some of the softer, slower stuff including “Tornadoes”, “Danko/Manuel” and the untouchable “Outfit”. But I quickly came around to appreciating the seriously big southern [...]
Bold statement: This is my new favorite album. I will readily admit that my tastes can be a bit narrow. But, I like what I like. I like spaghetti, and the color purple and I like alt.country music. And Will Quinlan writes some gorgeous alt.country music and some damn fine songs. I don’t spend much [...]
In September 2007, I made my first trip to the fabled Austin, TX, to attend the Austin City Limits festival in Zilker Park. Among the 30+ acts I saw that weekend was Steve Earle, a long-time favorite of mine. At the time we were in town for ACL, Steve Earle was about to release his [...]