How Music Works is a strange hybrid of a book. It is part musical autobiography, part advice manual for musicians and part philosophical treatise. The amazing thing is that Byrne pulls it off and unites all those elements into a coherent, interesting and entertaining whole. Byrne's overarching thesis is that context influences music. Not just how we hear it, but in fact how it is created; that the type of music one plays is inevitably influenced by the context in...

Remember that girl you knew back in high school who was allegedly a really good guitar player – but no one really knew for sure because she never really played around school and didn't play in a band? Rumors circulated that she was some kind of prodigy, but no one knew for sure because she was really soft spoken and introverted and that one time you asked her to jam with you, she just blushed really brightly before declining the...

Hey junky, Well, I guess I dunnit – I pissed off the gods o' South By Southwest, ann'ey decided ta fight fire wit' napalm; they hit me wit' alla da music I could handle – ann'en some! 'At's right junky, I've got the muthafuckin' muthaload fer youse dis week! It's huge! It's like da gates opened up an' alla da SWAG thit wis hidin' inna dark corners o' da undaground came runnin' through. Ann'I got it all fer youse! Dat's...

Hey junky,Well, I guess I dunnit – I pissed off the gods o' South By Southwest, ann'ey decided ta hit me wit' alla da music I could handle – ann'en some! 'At's right junky, I've got the muthafuckin' muthaload fer youse dis week! It's huge! It's like da gates opened up an' alla da SWAG thit wis hidin' inna dark corners o' da undaground came runnin' through. Ann'I got it all fer youse! Dat's right, ther might be more dis...

Remember back at the dawn of punk, when no one really had a “sound” or a “genre” or a banner to stand under, the artists just had something they wanted to say, an urgent desire to get it out of them and a bad attitude? Some readers certainly do remember but, given that Kate Nash was only born in 1987, there is precisely no way she remembers that time period. By the time she was old enough to start caring,...

Get Up! is an album that had to happen eventually; the question is why did it take so long? It unites two generations of bluesmen (Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite were born twenty-five years apart) and, in the process, demonstrates the universality of the blues idiom. Harper and Musselwhite first worked together in 1997 on a John Lee Hooker recording. It took them this long to find the time to record a full album together but, once they did, they...

Now in their forty-forth year, seminal progressive rock band Yes brought their current tour to San Francisco last week and proved that not only has time treated them well, but that they can still deliver the trademark songs that made them a staple of rock radio. Walking out onto stage to "The Firebird Suite," with a video montage of classic band photos behind them,Yes took a look at the sold out crowd in front of them and kicked off the...

It’s hard to think of pop punk sweethearts that are hotter than Teenage Bottlerocket and Masked Intruder right now. As they are both It’s Alive Records alums that have since moved onto Fat Wreck (and found success there, might I add), it only made sense to pair them up for a tour that is, as we speak, ravaging the country. I made sure to check out the Boston date where it bears noting: Both of these bands have recently put...

The cover of The Next Day takes the cover image of "Heroes" and slaps a white box over it, containing the title. This, combined with the first single and video, ("Where Are We Now?" which looks back on Bowie's time in Berlin in the mid-Seventies), leads one to suppose that this is a backwards looking album – despite the title. If that is the assumption you choose to leap to, you'll probably liken The Next Day to Scary Monsters –...

For the last twenty-nine years, The Cannanes have been called “Australia's secret pride” and “the world's most indie band” because they've become a respected name and institution on the power of world of mouth. In the span of their career, the band has made its own way and its own fate without employing a manager or an agent, nor have they ever had a recording deal – they've built an impressive name with some great songs, a good live show...