Artwork by CRAIG HORKY BY JONATHAN VALANIA When Hold Steady frontman Craig Finn was growing up in suburban Minneapolis in the shag-carpeted ’70s, there was nothing musical about the family Finn, nothing at all. Nobody played an instrument. Nobody played records on the stereo. They did not even sing show tunes on long car rides. But when he was eight years old Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham choked to death on his own vomit, and that’s when he discovered the all-consuming, spell-casting, mood-altering, prayer-answering, life-taking power of rock n’ roll. Up until this point he’d thought of rock n’ roll […]
CINEMA: God Of Thunder
ROLLING STONE: “Setting out across a 1975 America exhausted politically, economically and socially, a busload of musicians—assembled by Bob Dylan—hits the road in search of new creative horizons. The resulting tour, the Rolling Thunder Revue, would reveal a Dylan rarely seen: playful, mask-wearing, intense, expansive, rejuvenated,” Netflix said of the film. “Masterfully capturing both an icon and a nation in transition, director Martin Scorsese tells the tale using footage that was abandoned for decades, now gorgeously restored, taking viewers into the heart of a freewheeling, electrifying musical gamble. Inspired by Dylan’s own restless spirit, Scorsese performs some breathtaking sleight of […]
BON IVER: Hey, Ma
JUST ANNOUNCED: Bon Iver @ Wells Fargo Center on October 10th with Feist. Tickets go on sale HERE Friday June 7th @ noon. PREVIOUSLY: The live band is a tight five piece — two drummers, two guitarists (counting Vernon) and a bassist — capable of rendering the densely idiosyncratic sonics of the last two albums with razor-sharp precision and note-perfect fidelity complimented by a magnificently choreographed light show and the Met’s perfect sound forever. They look less like a band than starship technicians manning their work stations within the elaborate H.R. Giger-esque Rube Goldberg contraption that is the stage set. […]
Win Tix To See The National + Courtney Barnett
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER If Joy Division had a horn section and beards and grew up in Cincinnati in the ’80s instead of Manchester in the ’70s, they would have been called The National and Ian Curtis would still be dead. Speaking of which, we have a pair of tix to see The National perform on June 11th at the Mann Center with very special guest Courtney Barnett! To qualify to win them, you must be signed up for our mailing list (see right, below the masthead), trust us you want to do this. You get first dibs on concert […]
DADDY LONG LEGS: Pink Lemonade
Brooklyn, NY-based trio DADDY LONG LEGS—Brian Hurd (vocals, harmonica, guitar), Murat Akturk (slide guitar), Josh Styles (drums, maraca) made their Yep Roc Records debut May 10 with Lowdown Ways, their third studio album. Produced by Jimmy Sutton and engineered by Alex Hall (JD McPherson, Pokey LaFarge, Jake La Botz) at Hi-Style Studios in Chicago, the album features 12 original compositions with songwriting contributions from JD McPherson and Sutton. A new direction from their first two studio albums (released by Norton Records), Lowdown Ways sees the boys widen their sonic horizons with field hollers, gospel, Cajun, and Mississippi Hill Music, coupled […]
CALEXICO + IRON & WINE: Midnight Sun
Calexico and Iron & Wine share the gorgeous second single from their upcoming album, Years to Burn, entitled “Midnight Sun.” In “Midnight Sun,” Calexico’s Joey Burns and Sam Beam of Iron & Wine trade haunted-sounding verses over shimmering steel until the song devolves into a corrosive electric lead from Burns, like a dying siren. The video makes use of over 100 paintings Beam did for the creation of the new album’s cover. Working with animator Jonny Sanders, the video brings to life in a spirited and fun way, the many images of Burns, Beam and Calexico drummer John Convertino. Years […]
BEING THERE: MONO @ Union Transfer
Photo by JOSH PELTA-HELLER Delicate placidity often led to sudden uproar when the streams of dark-wave singer/songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle and the ethereal post-rock of Japan’s MONO were crossed at Union Transfer Sunday night. Rundle and her touring band, comprised of Wovenhand’s Dylan Nadon on drums and Jay Jayle members Evan Patterson on guitar and Todd Cook on bass, kicked off their set with “Races” from 2018’s On Dark Horses. Rich with reverb, Rundle’s guitar sounds hung in the air as she leaned toward the microphone, her voice gentle and softening the music beneath. Before transitioning into “Light Song,” Rundle […]
TRIBUTE: Let Us Now Praise Joe Henry
Illustration by CHARLES BURNS via THE BELIEVER EDITOR’S NOTE: The following appreciation was written by the author in response to the sad news that acclaimed singer/songwriter and three-time Grammy-winning producer Joe Henry is battling Stage 4 prostate cancer. BY JON HOULON Got word yesterday that Joe Henry has begun a different sort of journey. So I wanted to send a love letter, get well card, fan’s note, or whatever you want to call it as a form of support. As bad as the 80s were, they still gave us Nebraska, Sign of the Times, Infidels, Let It Be, King of […]
TRAILER: David Crosby Will Not Go Quietly
ROLLING STONE: David Crosby reflects on drug addiction, personal tragedy and conflicts with former bandmates in the new trailer for David Crosby: Remember My Name. The Cameron Crowe-produced documentary — which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival — will open in New York and L.A. on July 19th. The clip opens with an interviewer asking the rock legend, “Do you ever wonder why you are still alive?” Without even a moment’s pause, he fires back, “I don’t know, man. No idea.” The 76-year-old songwriter proclaims that, despite his three heart-attacks and eight heart stents, he isn’t planning to slow […]
NPR 4 THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
Illustration by DREW FRIEDMAN FRESH AIR: Looking back on his early career, Howard Stern remembers being “petrified” that he wasn’t going to be able to make a living. “All the sexual antics, the religious antics, the race antics — everything that I talked about, every outrageous thing that I did — was to entertain my audience and grow my audience,” he says. “Whether you liked it or not, or the person down the street liked it or not — I didn’t care as long as I kept growing that audience.” Stern ultimately grew an audience of millions over a four-decade […]
INCOMING: Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
Neil Young will release TUSCALOOSA, from his ongoing live archival series, on June 7th. The previously unreleased, 11-track recording features Neil Young & Stray Gators recorded live at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa on February 5, 1973. The album can be pre-ordered now and will be available as a double album over 3-sides with etched artwork on side 4, as well as a single disc CD and on high resolution digital audio via NYA. During 1971 – 1973, between solo shows and dates with Crazy Horse, Young would switch up his sound to suit the material he would focus on […]
BEING THERE: Meat Puppets @ Underground Arts
The Meat Puppets’ Curt Kirkwood by JOSH PELTA-HELLER After the Meat Puppets’ first song at Underground Arts on Friday night, Curt Kirkwood’s son Elmo responded with a little cheek to a fan who called out his name to cheer him on. “What?!” Maybe he was annoyed, maybe not — but he almost immediately broke the tension with a fiendishly disarming grin, flashed from somewhere behind his cascading curls, and when the fan returned “We love you!,” the Pups’ heir-apparent backed down some more: “I love you too.” They’re not much for stage banter, these hirsute Phoenix indie-rockers-cum-desert-mystics — in fact […]
THE MAGIC PILGRIM: A Q&A With Damien Jurado
EDITOR’S NOTE: This Q&A originally published on May 18, 2018. We are reprising it now in advance of Damien Jurado’s performance at Johnny Brenda’s Friday May 17th in support of his new album, In The Shape Of The Storm. BY BRIAN HOWARD Damien Jurado is back. That statement is more literal than figurative. With his brand new album, The Horizon Just Laughed (Secretly Canadian), Jurado—the heart-on-his-sleeve indie folker who’s spent the last two-plus decades honing his signature style of spare, probing songs that are at once hauntingly beautiful and emotionally devastating—has returned to the real world, in a way. Jurado’s […]