Blog

HughShows Blog has featured thousands of original live band photos and has conducted over 1000 musician interviews (including Brian Wilson, Mavis Staples, and Bruce Hornsby) since starting. With the original ‘First/Last’ questionnaire, you get a sense of where the musician has come from and where they are going with their artistic expression.

First/Last-Old Man Markley

Posted on March 15, 2013

An amalgam of LA’s finest punk bands and seasoned bluegrass musicians, Old Man Markley is creating music that defies boundaries. Founded in 2007 in the sunny San Fernando Valley, OMM cut its teeth playing countless jams of bluegrass standards and covers of distinctly un-bluegrass songs done bluegrass style. Soon, out of the chaos grew original material that combined everything the band loved about all the different styles of music the members grew up playing and writing…

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First/Last-Carl Parsons

Posted on March 14, 2013

I have been doing this blog for nearly five years now and there have been many times when people come up to me at shows and recognize me and actually acknowledge what I do for the Pittsburgh music community. It has always been such a great experience for me as everyone has always been too cool. The majority are musicians but occasionally …

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First/Last-The Saw Doctors

Posted on March 11, 2013

Tuesday, March 12, 2013 Strip District

“The Saw Doctors are an Irish rock band. Formed in 1986 in Tuam, County Galway. They have achieved nineteen top-thirty singles in Ireland, including three number ones. Their first number one, “I Useta Lover,” topped the Irish charts for nine consecutive weeks in 1990 and held the record for the country’s…

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First/Last-Brooke Annibale

Posted on March 8, 2013

Singer-songwriter Brooke Annibale’s upcoming EP, Words in Your Eyes, showcases a rising talent in the midst of an intriguing transition. The EP features less of the acoustic folk pop sound that has appeared on her previous releases-particularly on her stunning 2011 full-length release, Silence Worth Breaking, which Stereo Subversion called “phenomenal,” and Glide Magazine hailed…

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First/Last-The Depth and the Whisper

Posted on March 7, 2013

The Depth and The Whisper is music from the heart, delivered from the soul. Songwriters Albert Bickley and Dave Tanner formed the group in late 2010 as a platform to share ideas. From there, The Depth and The Whisper blossomed into its own entity on stage and in the studio. A self-released EP in 2011, One Steady Breath, and follow-up single, Highway, released this past December, have drawn acclaim as well as steady radio play in and around the band’s home base of Kansas City…

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First/Last-Scott Miller

Posted on March 5, 2013

>Raised on a cattle farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, where he expects to return before too long, he writes songs full of rural imagery, and his trademark is the mule. But he also has a degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from William & Mary and can write a rock song with the best of them…

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Favorite Albums of All-Time # 11-20

Posted on March 3, 2013

In deciding to compile this list, I tried to be as honest as possible in that I found myself several times resisting the urge to include albums or musicians that I ‘thought’ I should have on my list but don’t necessarily listen to all that much. For example, there’s a reason I don’t have any jazz on here. I don’t find myself reaching for Miles Davis over R.E.M. so why be a poseur and include it? These are favorites…’MY favorites’…

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First/Last-Ursa Major

Posted on March 1, 2013

five piece folk rock band currently residing in pittsburgh first album ‘songs for haney’ recorded in december 2008 fourteen track stripped down folk album released on sugartop records in january of 2009. 150 individually collaged copies distributed followed by 50 printed and 50 more hand collaged. Currently for free download here and on last.fm took a deep breathe for a few months and then got a drummer in may 2009 second release …

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First/Last-The Garment District (Jennifer Baron)

The Garment District is the new musical project of multi-instrumentalist Jennifer Baron, a founding member of Brooklyn’s The Ladybug Transistor (Merge). The Garment District’s debut album, Melody Elder, was released on cassette in late 2011,…

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First/Last-Joel Ansett

Joel Ansett is a singer/songwriter from Spokane, WA who currently resides in friendly Pittsburgh, PA. He loves lemonade, Gonzaga basketball, and mountains. He plans to pursue songwriting as a career with all of his might…

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First/Last-Jann Klose/Rebecca Loebe

Jann Klose is currently completing work on the follow up to his critically acclaimed album REVERIE with producers David Bendeth (Paramore, Bruce Hornsby, Elvis Presley) and James Frazee (Esperanza Spalding, Blondie, My Morning Jacket). He’s also co-writing songs and performing with Gary Lucas (Captain Beefheart,…

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First/Last-Acrylic Clouds

Friends that love to write and play acoustic/experimental/folk music…

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First/Last-Murder By Death

On the surface, Murder By Death is a Bloomington, IN quintet with a wry, ominous name. But behind the geography and moniker is a band of meticulous and literary songwriters matched by a specific brand of brooding, anthem-riding balladry and orchestral indie rock. Murder By Death’s path began in the early 2000s as most Midwestern college-town groups do, by playing to small crowds at ratty venues and frenzied house parties. While many of their formative-year scene-mates failed…

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First/Last-Ex Cops

Other Music Recording Co.’s first release of 2013 comes from the label’s very first signing, Ex Cops, whose debut single launched the imprint last April. Formed by Brian Harding (formerly of Hymns) and Amalie Bruun (formerly of Minks), the Brooklyn band was born in 2011, issuing a short-run, homespun CD-EP of hazy…

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First/Last-The Detroit Rebellion

The blues had a nice renaissance in 2012, with Jack White and The Black Keys bringing their unique takes on the storied genre to the masses. While some blues revivalists don’t like to get their hands too dirty, Detroit Rebellion are knee deep in the muck. Fork In the Road, their sophomore EP, is a testament to that integrity: a gritty, dust on the amps, stripped down love letter to the blues legends of the past (John Lee Hooker/Leadbelly), crossed with Detroit Rebellion’s own modern…

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First/Last-Saul Conrad

Saul Conrad is a 24-year old songwriter with a keen poetic sensibility, weaving melodies in and around a rich accoustic world. Saul’s music draws inspiration from Townes Van Zandt and Elliott Smith, but in the end he creates a style that is uniquely his own…

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First/Last-The Delta Saints

The Delta Saints are not what they say they are. Delta? Absolutely. But saints? One might call them “cautionary tales” long before the term “saints” ever came to mind; however, there is something devout about their bayou rock, a dirty, distinct sound they’ve zealously refined on their debut full-length, Death Letter Jubilee. Alternating between raucous melodies and slow-burning odes to the devil in his many forms, Ben Ringel (vocals/dobro), Dylan Fitch (guitar),..

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Favorite Albums of All-Time # 21-40

In deciding to compile this list, I tried to be as honest as possible in that I found myself several times resisting the urge to include albums or musicians that I ‘thought’ I should have on my list but don’t necessarily listen to all that much. For example, there’s a reason I don’t have any […]

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First/Last-Nic Lawless

Nic Lawless came to me when I was travelling this summer. I was working from music festival to festival selling cheese fries (lots of em) and some other shit. On our way to Wakarusa, a music festival in Arkansas, our van got pulled over and searched entirely by the police. They found my ass camped in the back of a U-haul…

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First/Last-Polar Scoüt

Not shockingly, it began in high school. Maybe even… before. My mother played piano and I picked up some melodies from that. The Slant, for the most part, was a band I formed with fellow students, but we added a guitar player: Andre Costello from out-of-town: Elwood City, at the time. We played/laid around for several years, I was the lead singer, but we were all songwriters. It went well.. some airplay, a feature in the Post-Gazette, a spot on NPR…

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