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...

Any listener who claims that they ever expected anything which sounds like Old Sock from Eric Clapton is a liar. Granted, the guitarist has sampled a wide variety of sounds and styles over the span of his fifty-year career; he's been a blues breaking inspiration, a Yardbird, a guitar god, a hot-ticket AM pop phenom (see the period of time which yielded Slowhand, No Reason To Cry and Backless), a blues revivalist (his Unplugged set still ranks as one of...

Sometimes it's reassuring to hear a new record and be able to trace its lineage back to its precise point of origin – from a sonic standpoint. Take Green Day for example; author Stephen Frears wasn't wrong when he wrote that the origins of the band's sound could be traced back to Stiff Little Fingers; the guitar styling and tone of it on “Suspect Device” is virtually identical to that found on Kerplunk! and Dookie. The same could be said...

At this point, any discussion of The Proclaimers is going to include a token mention of a few things, so let's get them out of the way right off the top. The band's new album (their ninth), Like Comedy, deserves better than trite or cliche discussion, so let's condense everything that everyone is going to say down to one easy block and get it out of the way, right off the top so we don't have to think about it...

While it might have taken a while for Boz Scaggs' gears to catch (a couple of ill-fated albums with the Steve Miller Band as well as a few largely ignored solo albums came before the guitarist's career began to move with the release of Slow Dancer in 1974) there's no way to deny the guitarist's popularity in the late Seventies and most of the Eighties. The sound of a Fender Telecaster was the thing which really got Scaggs over but,...

Heya junky, Awright, so, apparently i's a holiday – didja know? They tell me thit half the music business is outta town an' shmoozin' down in Texas at South By Southwest. They tell me thit every publicist thit could afford it is packin' up an' ran south ta Austin, Texas ta talk an' drink too much as they ponder the state o' da music business an' see a buncha concerts. Sounds great right? Yeah shoor – 'cept I got one...