John Trudell is one of the few recording artists who would include a review by the FBI among the blurbs in his press material — right between kind words from Bonnie Raitt and a rave from the LA Weekly. “Extremely eloquent,” some unidentified G-man wrote. Somehow it’s hard to believe that the rest of this [...]

There’s no denying that Japan’s Petty Booka is a novelty act. With their ukuleles, their faux-grass skirts and their innocent but sexy stage manner, the singers (named Petty and Booka) create an atmosphere of some mythical vaudeville stage – even when they’re singing songs by the Ramones or Culture Club.
But what a novelty they are. [...]

Perhaps the greatest tribute to the late Austin songwriter Blaze Foley is the fact that Merle Haggard not only recorded Foley’s “If I Could Only Fly” — twice — but he named his latest album after the tune.
Hag’s first version of that song, recorded with Willie Nelson on a 1987 duet album, caps off [...]

“From Lubbock, Texas, by way of Mars…”
This is how The Legendary Stardust Cowboy is introduced at the outset of this album, recorded live at the Lounge Ax in Chicago in 1998. As his band is going full-throttle on a galloping, surfadelic version of “Ghost Riders In The Sky”, the Legendary One plays a few moose-in-heat [...]