As exciting as a new, forthcoming release can be for a band, there's something special about the prospect of a vinyl release. Part of that certainly must have to do with the fetish quality inherent to a 7” single or a full-length, 33RPM album; CDs are indestructible compared to those tiny grooves in an album or single, and collectors need to observe the levels of external stimuli including temperature and moisture in order to best maintain their music. Arguments have...

Ever seen an opening band almost sacrifice the headliner? On a seasonably (and completely expected) cold and windy Friday night in Philadelphia, my friends and I are on the top floor of Johnny Brenda’s thinking just that. We were there to see Kurt Vile, and it just so happened that we showed up early enough to see both opening bands play –  so much for being fashionably late. We made our way on to the top floor, ordered some Oyster...

It's a good time to be into punk rock. Oh sure, the scene is still dishing out the goods like it always has, and yes, the vinyl is as plentiful as in the 'golden years,' but those tuned into the scene right now get to experience something altogether baffling; punk rockers going the folk singer/songwriter route…solo. It's happening everywhere; Joey Cape, Tony Sly, Nathan Maxwell, Ben Nichols, Tim Barry, Chris Wollard, and most notably to this column, Chuck Ragan. There's...

Over the last seven years (2003's Lover/Fighter started this trend), Hawksley Workman has continually trailed ever further from the fantastic and plastic vaudevillian center that he established with (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves and elected to test drive a host of personas and images – from the modern and idiosyncratic new romantic aesthete on Treeful Of Starling to a hyper-masculine chest-beater on Los Manlicious to a classic rocking bard on Between The Beautifuls. In each case and as...

In this life, there are dreams come true and there are things one hopes for but does not expect to happen – particularly in the cases of rock n' roll institutions. A lot of that is psychological; for fans, the sound of a familiar and adored but nearly forgotten song can cause memories of events to rush back because the music was there as the soundtrack to them. The same thing happens to those musicians that wrote and recorded the...

Anyone familiar with the city of New Orleans knows it has a rich cultural and artistic history. Over the last fifty years (at least), volumes have been written about the city's contributions to ragtime, soul, jazz, rock and blues as well as the artists that developed their chops in the Big Easy but it's only the history that ever gets addressed; the artistic community of present day New Orleans has been passed over at every turn, no matter how “comprehensive”...

How exactly Motion City Soundtrack managed to talk themselves into a deal with Columbia after the abysmal flop that was Even If It Kills Me may never be known. That album even saw Alternative Press – previously a notable MCS booster – turn on the band and it's easy to understand why; they overreached and paid for it. The success of Commit This To Memory was well deserved, Mark Hoppus helped to sculpt some fine Top 40 punk out of...

After a label switch (from Sony to Atlantic) and a three-year hiatus from studio recording that saw singer Jon Foreman testing the waters of solo work instead, Switchfoot has returned  renewed with Hello Hurricane – a reaffirming but more secular than spiritual document that bears the first marks of more mature work for the band. The difference between Hello Hurricane and all of the band's previous work is apparent from the opening rush of “Needle And Haystack Life.” No longer...

If The Vaselines had been slightly more accomplished on their instruments, if Arctic Monkeys didn’t take themselves so seriously, if The Fratellis had a better sense of humor, well, none of them could have been Los Campesinos – a band smart enough to write good, catchy songs, but also smart enough to laugh at themselves and not feel compelled to illustrate how damned clever they are at every opportunity. The closest approximation to the sonic joy that Los Campesinos! express...

If you've ever been the monitor at a daycare center, you know that children are the closest things in creation to genuine perpetual motion machines. As they play, they have this awesome ability to move so quickly, excitedly and constantly but, if you watch, there will always be that one kid in the pack that stops, steps back, and watches the torrent of activity swirling around them as if from the eye of a hurricane. That image comes to mind...