Vote For Who? by Janel Davis Candidate DeAndre Forney: Republican and proud. DeAndre Forney proudly held up his campaign sign, which read, “Republican Forney County Commission.” The election was three hours over, the votes tallied, and Forney’s primary bid was over. But Forney was not discouraged. His signs have no date on them, he said, […]
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Alice Blood Money Tom Waits (Anti-) Like the last opium dream of a drowned sailor oozing up from the bone-laden depths of Davy Jones’ toilet, Tom Waits’ Alice will give you night sweats and make you nostalgic for the days when ghosts were imaginary and innocence seemed possible, if not exactly obtainable. Unlike his last […]
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sound advice
The latest indie buzz band to emerge from Teenbeat Records, the same D.C.-based label that made Unrest and Versus college-radio staples in the mid-’90s, Aden make music as cerebral and drowsy as you might expect, sort of like a more folky version of Versus. The band’s latest album, Topsiders, is a solid set of smart, […]
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TOP 10 Profiles
1. The North Mississippi Allstars A year ago, the North Mississippi Allstars were facing down the sophomore slump. Their rapturously received debut, “Shake Hands With Shorty”, had made them national names and a self-conscious music scene’s great hope. The band’s nimble, exploratory take on the hill-country blues tradition brought a regional music home to jam-band […]
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Uninvisible Medeski, Martin & Wood (Blue Note) Miles is grinning in his grave. If any album has come close to capturing something akin to what Miles Davis created out of the ether in the late ’60s and early ’70s — such fusion crucibles as Big Fun, On the Corner, and Get Up With It — […]
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Sound Advice
To tell the truth, I’ve never been a big fan of outdoor music festivals. Too often, they’re overcrowded, uncomfortably hot, littered with trash, and not really conducive to good music. Give me a dark, dank, cool club anytime. But one of the rare outdoor festivals in this area that really works for me is The […]
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“Meet the Curlews!” Curlew (Cuneiform) You say you’re feeling sleepy very sleepy? Well, you must have been listening to “Meet the Curlews!”, the newest from Mississippi-born avant-garde saxophonist George Cartwright’s dynamic outfit Curlew. And that’s not meant to be derogatory (the fact that the album, at times, could possibly induce you to kick back and […]
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Sound Advice
The new-look Hi-Tone CAFE boasts a couple of compelling roots-music shows this week. Austin bluesman W.C. Clark will lay down some soul and blues at the club on Friday, April 19th. Clark’s recent album, From Austin with Soul, lives up to its title, mixing modern blues with old-school soul in a manner that might remind […]
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Read Music/Speak Spanish Desaparecidos (Saddle Creek) I’ve always had my doubts about Conor Oberst. The Nebraska-based singer-songwriter has been an indie-rock cult hero since fronting the band Commander Venus back in the mid-’90s as a 14-year-old, later building an audience under the moniker Bright Eyes with folk-rock so intensely personal it would make Sebadoh’s Lou […]
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Sound Advice
After the recent dissolution of his seminal (around these parts, anyway) alt-country band Blue Mountain, Oxford’s Cary Hudson spent some time as a Preacher’s Kid, backing up his old-time rock-and-roll homeboy Tyler Keith. But now Hudson’s back in the saddle, going the solo route with the new record The Phoenix on his own Black Dog […]
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In Search Of N*E*R*D (Virgin) N*E*R*D consists of Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo (better known as the current “It” boys of production, the Neptunes) along with fellow gaming vidiot Shay. And the name is appropriate.The group’s style is less ghetto-fab “Lord of the Blings” than indie-rock geek chic. After scoring a string of hits as […]