Looking like an ancient Hopi trickster, his eyes gleaming with malevolent glee, Link Wray took the stage like a primal force of nature with his elemental power chords that announced he was ready to “Rumble” — the murderous instrumental that caused thousands of 1950s mothers to lock up their daughters, and countless latter-day guitar heroes [...]

Musicians who play the Cave on a July night earn every penny they make. The humidity off the street slides in the front door and through the cracks in the wall of this basement-level bar, while crashes and shouts drift in from the pool tables in the rear. You seize the stage or you’re wallpaper. [...]

“You don’t have to stand in the doorway — there’s no earthquake,” quipped Blazers guitarist Manuel Gonzalez to two wallflowers who had crammed themselves in a jamb. Not an earthquake, but certainly a post-flood heat wave, as the warehouse doors were thrown open and the air-conditioning was on the blink at the homey Gallista Gallery, [...]

He may have been through some rough times in the recent past, but Billy Joe Shaver soldiers on. Musically, his biggest loss was the New Year’s Eve 2000 death of his guitar-player son Eddie, which resulted in the band they fronted together coming to a premature end. This performance, then, presented a different side of [...]

Winter is a relative concept for Australians. Call us wimps, compared to northern hemisphere music fans, but don’t say it to the 2000-odd Paul Kelly fans who waited in the cold and rain to see our unofficial national hero of song. It would take more than bad weather to sabotage a show by Kelly and [...]

Jon Langford already answers to such honorifics as Mr. Mekon, Big Chief Waco, and Pine Valley party chairman. On this sultry Friday night, he added another: Master of Ceremonies. Though he led the Pine Valley Cosmonauts (a group that included John Rice on guitar and Steve Goulding on drums, among others), Langford ceded center stage [...]

“You guys didn’t tell me this was on the set list!” guitarist/vocalist David Lowery called to his bandmates halfway through the second of three sold-out shows at New York City’s Knitting Factory. “I hope you’re OK with that,” bassist Victor Krummenacher offered before Camper Van Beethoven launched into “Down And Out”, from their 1986 album [...]