Claudia Lennear has been a witness to some peak moments in rock and soul. First as a member of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue, she’s sung backup on classic recordings and toured the world, shared stages with former Beatles and Bob Dylan, and was the inspiration behind David Bowie’s torrid 1972 epic “Lady Grinning […]
When Lindsey Buckingham released his self-titled record in September, the media frequently lauded “Swan Song,” the fourth track, as a standout tune. What’s more, Buckingham himself told Newsweek that it’s one of his two favorite songs on the new record. But when Blinker the Star founder/frontman/songwriter and record producer Jordon Zadorozny (whose credits include producing […]
“I think a lot of people try to force positivity out of it. Quite frankly, I thought it was horrible,” Sam Fender says when asked about the time he spent alone during lockdown. Sure, those months proved to be fertile ground for the self-examination threading together his second album Seventeen Going Under, but he’s not […]
The last year and a half led plenty of people to their breaking point — but for Jade Jackson and Aubrie Sellers, one step closer to the edge was a good thing. Though both women were already established as emerging alt-country artists in their own right, each with two solo albums to their name, the […]
Towards the end of The Beta Test, Jim Cummings explodes into a monologue of anger and truth. Those who have seen the writer/director/actor’s other feature films — Thunder Road and The Wolf of Snow Hollow — are familiar with this trademark scene. The reason for the routine display is that Cummings loves public freakouts. Cummings’ […]
Being told you’re cancer-free should be cause for joyous celebration. But Gates vocalist/guitarist Kevin Dye was also struck by a more negative reaction when told an operation to remove a cancerous growth on his lungs was completely successful. It sent him into a deep spiral of existential depression. He’d first noticed something was wrong in […]
Comedian Josh Johnson is multi-talented. Comedian Josh Johnson is a hustler. Comedian Josh Johnson is an optimist. Not being able to figure out which way to start off a conversation about Johnson is a good thing because in this case, all three statements are true. For someone barely scratching the surface of his thirties, Johnson […]
It’s October 2015 and around 1:30 in the afternoon at the Austin City Limits Festival. An early day set at an event like this usually requires strength to mobilize. But my friends and I are standing in the pit, excited to see one of the ACL’s best rising new bands on the bill: British indie-rockers, […]
About two hours after finishing their set at the Constellation Room in Santa Ana, California, the night before vocalist/guitarist Alex Stoitsiadis’s 24th birthday, the four members of Dogleg (and their trusty photographer/singular crew member, Erika) sit around a corner booth at a Southern California diner. The Saturday night show where they blasted through a half-hour […]
Early in the pandemic, Death Cab for Cutie‘s Ben Gibbard seemed to be ahead of the curve. In March, he launched a solo performance stream, Live From Home, helping blueprint a detour for musicians swept off the road. But with the camera switched off, he was just as confused as anyone else — and it […]