Josh Ritter is an anachronism. With his suspenders and curly head of red, newsboy hair, he could be a turn-of-the-century busker or a character out of a Dickens novel. His minimalist, acoustic folk albums fit snugly alongside 1960s Bob Dylan and 1930s Woody Guthrie. But the thing that most sets Ritter apart from modern-day musicians isn’t his wardrobe or his music. It’s his smile. Continue reading…
A few weeks ago, Langhorne Slim and his ridiculously good band played the Casbah. We loved it, and as with many who’ve seen him on this tour, an obsession was born.
We recently asked Langhorne and his band — Jeff Ratner, David Moore, and Malachi DeLorenzo — to reveal their Poetic Memories, and they came back with a wide-ranging and reliable list that sheds light on what they’re reading, watching, and playing. Check it out below. Continue reading
For this edition of Poetic Memory, Wheat drummer Brendan Harney summed up his intentions better than we could’ve:
The visual aspect of music and images associated with sound, melody, etc. have always played a major role in what we do as a band. So, as I mined that a bit, I started to think about all the images related to music that have greatly affected me throughout the years. Through all of them, none have left such a deep and lasting impression as the images that I looked at as a young boy while I played the records that my mom brought home. I was fortunate to have someone in my life who collected a wide variety of music, and it’s these early images that burned themselves, along with the music of course, into my soul, and continue to influence the way I feel about what great art is really about. Some are the covers of records, and others are from the inner sleeve or gatefold—whichever struck me the most then.
Wheat released White Ink, Black Ink, their first album of new material since 2007, on July 21. Check out their single, Changes Is (MP3). You can also watch the video (above).
Here’s Brendan Harney’s Poetic Memory: Continue reading
Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 failed in ousting the Bush administration from the White House in 2004. Slacker Uprising, the new film by Moore documenting the 2004 tour of the same name, gives him one more chance to proclaim, “Mission accomplished,†and be correct this time. (On a personal note, I don’t see how this film could fail in getting rid of Bush.)