Music & More

Here are my choices for the five best albums of the year so far. 1. Bruce Springsteen - Wrecking Ball Listen to "Wrecking Ball" It Takes a Village, Baby: The death of Clarence Clemons left a giant hole in Bruce Springsteen's music, both compositionally and in performance. The resulting expansion of the E Street Band was felt both on the road and on his latest album, Wrecking Ball. The loss of keyboard player Danny Federici a few years ago also contributed to the new personnel. On the Wrecking Ball tour, early on in each concert Bruce introduces the new horn section, the violinist, and the backup singers, saying "To do what we came here to do tonight, it takes a village baby." Long story short, Wrecking Ball works both on record and live, like no other Springsteen album since 1987's Tunnel of Love. Bruce made such compelling music on his first seven studio albums, that as each succeeding album grew more issue oriented, the songs became more and more like fo...

Joe Williams - I Just Want To Sing New Occasional Feature : We are in the midst of a major project to digitize our entire CD collection, and as we go we are constantly running across rare, forgotten, interesting, or just plain great records that you just don't hear much. We'll show the album, tell a little about it, stream a couple of tracks, and link to Amazon if the album is still available. This feature takes inspiration from Mike's Basement , Mike being Mike Marrone, who does one of the best music shows we've ever heard on the radio. You can catch Mike weekday mornings, 6am-Noon eastern on Sirius XM channel 30 - The Loft . We are also inspired by The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn , another essential radio show. Ben dips into his amazing record collection every week for an hour of rare, sometimes unusual, but always fabulous records. The show is well named because Ben could play anything. The show is only carried on three stations, but two of them stream their signal on...

Available Now Tanita Tikaram has always been one of our favorite singer-songwriters. Her last album, Sentimental, seven years ago, was not only one of her best but ranks as one of our all time favorite records. The good news today was the release of a song and video from her forthcoming new album, Can't Go Back, due out August 31st. The new song is "Dust On My Shoes", one of ten songs on the new album; track list is below. "Dust On My Shoes" is now available at Amazon and iTunes . According to Tanita: "I've always wanted to write a song like 'Dust On My Shoes', which is a simple freedom song. The word 'freedom' becomes more and more important to all of us - in every choice, every political & moral decision and the attempt to live in a free way I find very moving. It is also about how you can be free from people's conceptions of you, if you want and how, while I don t have faith, I do believe and I do strive to have an open mind...

Snakadaktal - "Dance Bear" Another Nice Taste of the Melbourne Music Scene: Three days ago, Australian indie label I Oh You released "Dance Bear", a new single by Melbourne indie band Snakadaktal, with the following post on the label website: SNAKADAKTAL – DANCE BEAR (NEW SINGLE) Posted on: June 12th, 2012 by iohyou No Comments Hi Friends, It’s moments like this that I realise how lucky I am to be able to work with the bands we do. Today Snakadaktal have dropped their new single “Dance Bear”. I’m not even going to describe it or try and sell it to you….I wouldn’t do it justice. Listen to Snakadaktal - "Dance Bear" Photo courtesy of Snakadaktal That morning, there was an update from The Ripe , waiting in our email, and this song immediately caught our ears with its cool keyboards, catchy chorus, great vocals and nice fat beats. Triple J radio in Melbourne jumped on the song straight out of the gate on their morning show and before the day was out, ...

Photo courtesy of Courtney Barnett A few weeks ago, we wrote about Courtney Barnett , singer, songwriter, and musician from Melbourne, Australia, and her new EP, I've Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris which we quite like. Courtney just sent a cool new video of her and her her band, Live On the Roof, performing "Scotty Says", from the EP. The lead guitarist gives this a nice, alt-country edge. "Stoner/slacker/garage-pop" indeed. I've Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris Courtney Barnett's Website Courtney Barnett's Facebook

Joe Walsh stopped by the Howard Stern Show yesterday for a freewheeling interview with Howard. Joe was most candid about the years he lost to alcohol and drugs, plus he told a great story about writing "Rocky Mountain Way." Joe's happiness about his survival, his sobriety, his marriage, and his new album came through loud and clear. Here is the complete interview (53:46). Photos courtesy of the Howard Stern Show Joe's new album, Analog Man comes out today. Analog Man [CD / DVD Combo Deluxe Edition] Joe Walsh's Website Joe Walsh's Facebook

Just about the last thing we ever expected to see was a new Beach Boys record that is really quite good. With all due respect to the 'Boys, after the Holland album they pretty much gave up trying to record new music, and they turned into an oldies band, which is where they've been for almost forty years (give or take a Kokomo along the way). "That's Why God Made the Radio" was released in advance of the album of the same name which comes out tomorrow. This is not only a great sounding Beach Boys song, it's also crossed over from pop and hits radio to AAA stations like WXPN and the Loft channel on Sirius XM satellite radio, stations that rarely ever play the Beach Boys. Based on Brian Wilson's recent recording and performance activities, it's hard to tell how much of this is really the Beach Boys and how much is young musicians and singers who sound just like the Beach Boys at their best. Whatever the mix, we'll take it, it sounds great. Have a li...

Rumer is one of our favorite new singer-songwriters. Her debut album took up residence in our player last year, much to our delight. She has one of the best new voices we've heard in a long time; it approaches Karen Carpenter in phrasing and tonal quality, plus she's got a penchant for Burt Bacharach style hits and movie themes from the sixties. She is about to release her second album, Boy's Don't Cry, which is all covers of lessor known songs from the seventies. On Thursday, May 24th, Rumer did a show at St. James Church in London, singing songs from the new album as well as from her debut. The concert was streamed live by Amazon Music UK . Courtesy of The Guardian , we are pleased to bring you this concert in its entirety. Enjoy. Photos courtesy of Rumer Warners may be doing a good job for her in the UK (Seasons of My Soul has sold well over a million copies), but she's gotten sketchy treatment by Warners' sister company Atlantic in the US. Last October...