There are some artists who strictly defy genres. Think of Roy Orbison. Yes, he was one of the famed artists on Sun Records, but what was he really? Was he rockabilly? Pop? Country? Easy Listening? In my mind, the closest term to describe Roy Orbison’s music is the one Bob Dylan coined for him: “cowboy opera.” Orbison’s voice was a river of silk floating through the grit and dry heat cacti. And while I know that M. Ward is no Roy Orbison (although he did …

It’s a good time to be a music video fan with a DVD player. Seems like every time I look around, there’s a new video compilation to snatch, and for kids like me who have an ample amount of grainy little MPEGs on their computers, usually encoded by god knows who and probably obtained from a junk server of dubious legality, it’s nice to upgrade.
The present is also a wise time to release a DVD of definitive Wu-Tang Clan videos: ODB’s death has …

Lately, it seems like everywhere an indie kid goes, they can find a freak-folk record. The music which was once associated with jugs, long beards, and county fair performances to which a misguided parent dragged you, has suddenly become strangely hip. Yet this growing interest in the freakier side of folk music rarely extends to the straight Americana and world-based folk from whence it came. Hopefully, the latest release from Tompkins Square, Imaginational Anthem, Vol. 2, will help shake off some more …

Some great voices are instruments of artistry. Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye — these are all composers, pop artistes; their legendary vocals just one element of their equally legendary visions. Other great voices, however, are something else entirely: they, themselves, are the instruments. Otis Williams belongs decidedly to the second category. A founding member of legendary soul quintet the Temptations, his powerful, melodic baritone sounded great on classics like “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “Just My Imagination”…but it was arguably …

Fun facts about Iceland: it has 98 municipalities. The national food includes such meats as rotten shark and ram testicle. It has one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Everyone there is absolutely nuts.
Okay, so that last fact might seem a little generalized, and I don’t want to be prejudiced, but all I’ve got to go on is the music – and if you’ve heard a good bunch of it, you might start to feel like I do. …

Being a clumsy and forgetful child (as well as having the burden, I mean blessing, of two younger siblings), I have only a few remaining relics of my youth. One of the most interesting of these is a tape my very religious babysitter had given me. I don’t remember many of the songs, nor do I remember who sang on it, but when I was four years old, I was obsessed with a song called “Patience”. It was about this man pretending he was a rabbit who kept saying, “I …