Author: Lloyd Sachs
Live Reviews from web archive April 27, 2009
Flatlanders
It may be time for the Flatlanders to give Rob Gjersoe a bolo and make his membership in the group official. In the early going at Chicago’s Old Town School Of Folk Music, before a characteristically sedate crowd, the band sounded a bit tired. When a tune as catchy as “Julia” doesn’t click, you know [...]
Record Review from web archive April 9, 2009
Sara Watkins
Words like “preternatural” probably shouldn’t be used in reviewing a record, especially one as wonderfully natural sounding as this one. But the more I listen to Sara Watkins’ self-titled album, with its gossamer vocals and heavenly instrumentation, the more the “p” word asserts itself. The music seems neither of this time nor of the past, [...]
Record Review from web archive March 26, 2009
Sarah Borges & the Broken Singles
With her third album, Boston bar-band chanteuse Sarah Borges sounds like a work in progress. There’s nothing wrong with that: In gravitating from the frisky roots and country of her debut to an eclectic, guitar-driven pop-rock sound that sometimes recalls fellow Bostonian Jen Trynin, she has been honing her artistic voice the way all young [...]
Column from web archive February 18, 2009
Joe Grushecky’s still getting out alive
You don’t hear much talk about working-class rock these days. Occasionally, the genre asserts itself, as with the Drive-By Truckers. But of the old standard-bearers, Bob Seger has long since faded, John Mellencamp has traded in his “Small Town” persona for wordly blues and protest songs (John Edwards’ use of “Small Town” as a campaign [...]
Record Review from web archive February 13, 2009
Matt Turner with Peg & Bill Carrothers
Nearly 150 years before Bruce Springsteen helped provide the musical backdrop for Barack Obama’s election and inauguration, Stephen Foster’s songs helped provide the backdrop for Abraham Lincoln’s rise to power. Will the Boss’ “Working On A Dream” be heard 150 years from now, the way Foster’s “Beautiful Dreamer” still is today? Listening to The Voices [...]
Column from web archive January 14, 2009
To Grammy or not to Grammy?
As a reader of these pages, you may be approaching the Grammy Awards, to be held February 9, with about the same enthusiasm that you’re approaching the next Osmond family reunion.There will be a few lively moments, at least one goofy singer summit, and maybe even a head butt (there must be a way to [...]
Column from web archive December 31, 2008
Like a ship out in the night…
In the days and weeks following 9/11, pronouncements over how our lives had been permanently altered flowed upstream and down. Irony was declared dead (sayonara David Letterman). Sensitivity had its i’s double-dotted, leading Clear Channel Communications to order its more than 1,000 radio outlets not to play dozens of songs it deemed tasteless in this [...]
Column from web archive December 17, 2008
Playing Chess, on the big screen
One of the best things about music biopics is the way they send you back to the songs. Movies such as Ray, Round About Midnight, The Doors, Great Balls Of Fire, and even that cheesy TV movie about the Beach Boys may come up short as art, but they motivate us to dive back into [...]
Record Review from web archive December 13, 2008
Jason Collett
Is it the Canadian in him that allows Jason Collett to slip into his scruffy, post-hipster persona so unassumingly? Whatever the factor, it would be a mistake to take this Toronto rocker lightly. For all its tossed-off charm, Here’s To Being Here is a work of real poetic depth and luminous emotion. With its sly [...]
Column from web archive December 3, 2008
Chuck Bernstein: Rhythms beyond borders
One of the great things about the blues is its refusal to have its origins nailed down. It’s easy enough to identify the Mississippi Delta as a spawning ground. But as Joe the Ethnomusicologist can attest, it’s difficult to say definitively what the blues did or didn’t take from Africa – or what parts of [...]
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