“Blessed with a commanding, blast-it-to-the-back-of-the-room voice, the 21 year-old Lydia Loveless was raised on a family farm in Coshocton, Ohio—a small weird town with nothing to do but make music. With a dad who owned a country music bar,..

“With their 2010 Nonesuch debut, Genuine Negro Jig—which garnered a Best Traditional Folk Album Grammy last year—the Carolina Chocolate Drops proved that the old-time, fiddle and banjo-based music they’d so scrupulously researched and passionately performed could be a living,..

“Rhett Miller is the front man and main songwriter of the hard-charging rock ‘n’ roll quartet the Old 97’s, as well as an accomplished solo artist. In addition to his nine studio albums with the 97’s (most recently The Grand Theatre Volume One and The Grand Theatre Vol. 2 in 2011), he has released four solo albums; 1989’s Mythologies, 2002’s The Instigator, 2006’s The Believer, and 2009’s Rhett Miller. Miller is set to release his first live covers album, The Interpreter Live at Largo, on November 22, 2011 on his own recently established label Maximum Sunshine Records.”…

“I knew when the time was right and my voice was ready, I wanted to make a recording like this one,” says Joan Osborne.
That recording is Bring It on Home, a collection of vintage blues, R&B and soul songs that make up the seventh album from the Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum artist. It’s an apt title—for Osborne, Home marks a return to her musical roots. “I cut my teeth in New York blues clubs singing songs like this,” she remembers. “I’d do three or four one-hour sets per night. That’s where I really learned to sing.”…

I am trying to think of how many times I have seen Rhett Miller, either with the Old 97’s or solo? I think it’s seven but could be more. His music means a whole hell of a lot to me and I am really excited to see him again, playing a solo gig with his new band backing band ‘The Serial Lady …

“Brooklyn’s Total Slacker IS an American psych-lo-fi-garage-noise-gaze band founded by Tucker Rountree and Emily Jane. After a killer year of shows with Thee Oh Sees, DFA 1979, The Rapture, Vivian Girls, Wavves, etc. and a successful run with their debut LP release Thrashin’…

There is a lot going on this Friday but I am definitely going to make it a point to cap off the night at the T’Bird where three very cool bands are going to rock Pittsburgh hard. Being a fan of these bands, I just hope I make it early enough to catch them all. My thanks to Roger Bryan for taking a few minutes to participate in this edition of First/Last…

Dawes are awesome! I have been lucky enough to catch them twice here in town previously and they return next week to play a free show with Sara Watkins opening up. Musically, this years Arts Fest is one of the best in recent years with the inclusion of Dawes certainly being one of the reasons why. Main man Taylor Goldsmith was cool enough to take a few minutes to participate in this edition of First/Last…

“Born b/w September 1988 and February 1990 and active since 2008, Slothbear recorded Slothbear EP in spring 2008 on a broken 4-track. Somepeople liked it, others did not. In fall of 2010 Slothbear recorded a new EP, “Canter On”, in Josh’s dilapidated old house. More autumnal and wistful, Cee once tweeted that the release was “more depressing with vaguely krautrock leanings spooky piano doug sings etc etc” and also postulated, via Twitter, that “[the] difference between the new slothbear record and the old one can be summed up by the fact that we say areolae where we once said labia…”

“Morgan Erina & Guy Russo began writing and performing together as Broken Fences in 2010, and have developed a sound that suggests a meeting between Bon Iver and Simon & Garfunkel. They’ve taken their two vastly different worldviews (She’s from NYC, he’s from Pittsburgh, PA), and melded them into an honest and powerful style of indie-folk, one that’s as current as it is timeless.”…

There was an announcement made yesterday that necessarily didn’t come as a shock but still was huge in my world nonetheless. My fellow Pittsburgh music bloggers and friends at Draw Us Lines made it clear that this small world I inhabit just may have got a tad smaller. The details can be read here…

p> Bowerbirds are coming to Pittsburgh next month. Hard to believe it’s been five years since I saw them last. The band are super nice and talented and this is one show I am really looking forward to…

This show was probably the most emotionally uplifting concert I have ever been to. With the obvious elephant in the room whisked away early and quickly as Mr. Campbell started RIPPING leads on his guitar, you could practically hear a collective sigh of relief from the crowd. Sure there were…

seeing the band and being that it’s an entirely new band backing songwriter Jonathan Meiburg, I was a tad reticent going in. All fears were wiped away as they muscled through a terrific set focusing exclusively on the new material. I dubbed it “Shearwater grows a pair!” Awesome…

Grant Lee Buffalo’s 1994 second album “Mighty Joe Moon” is and will always be my favorite album of all time. I call it the album that saved my life. It’s impossible to convey the meaning it has for me so instead of trying, I won’t. The band put out two more records before it’s main songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips embarked on a solo career, releasing six wonderful and varied albums of his own. He is in the midst of finalizing his seventh solo…

The first time I saw Grant Lee Buffalo was opening for The Smashing Pumpkins in 1996. Section D Row E means nothing to anybody when the hall is empty and I’m dancing like a fool. The band played six songs and that was it. Some stupid kid cuts the set short by tossing something onstage. Grant Lee gets mad, I miss out on a ‘Comes To Blows’ or ‘Happiness’…

“A folk troubadour whose talents have been lauded on the national and international scene for almost a decade, Jess Klein writes songs that tell the story of the soul – from wrenching heartbreak to finding the strength to pick up and move on…

Strip District Believe me, I do like St. Vincent. Thing is, I just don’t go nuts for her as it seems her fans do. Her music is technically good but it’s a little too ‘geometric’ for me. I never say to myself, “You know, I’m in the mood for some St. Vincent.” When it’s on, it’s enjoyable. Like Andrew Bird…

“With “his triple-threat ability—excellent songwriter, killer lead guitarist, charismatic frontman”—(AOL Spinner), California native and longtime San Francisco resident singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet pays homage to the city he calls home for his twelfth studio album, Temple Beautiful. Set for February 7,..

Downtown This was one fantastic concert. Leaving out all the negatives that could be brought up (ticket prices, venue choice, ‘auto-tune’?) I was floored how good the music (the backing band in particular) sounded. Yeah sure, the guys are getting up there in age and one cannot rule out the ‘cashgrab’ factor, especially after seeing first hand the ‘fragility’…