Muruch musical mascott Allison Crowe is putting the finishing touches on her upcoming seventh album Spiral and is kindly sharing a pre-album version of the new song "Going Home Tonight" with us. Allison's voice and piano playing are as beautiful as ever... Allison Crowe - Going Home Tonight (mp3) * *mp3 hosted by & posted w/ permission of artist Allison Crowe Reviews Allison Crowe Official Site (Buy CDs) Buy Allison Crowe CDs @ [...]

Canadian singer-songwriter Allison Crowe , who has made a career of covering, crafting and performing warm, lyrical songs with little more than an intensely rich, emotional voice, strong piano skills, and a heap of moxie, was recently refused entry into the UK for a music festival , a casualty of the United Kingdom's increasingly stringent rules for touring artists, which in turn seem to be part and parcel of the insane and inappropriately panicked global response to the fear of terrorism. We've covered Allison's work here before, and her manager Adrian even offered us some [...]
In my opinion, there hasn't been anything quite like the death of the 80's hair bands. If you were alive in the 80's, I'm sure you can remember the height of this hair band phenomenon… men wore makeup, teased their hair, pouted like those annoying Bratz dolls, and did what they could to be manly, but in a girlish kind of way. At the time it was the "cool" thing to do, but looking back on it, I'm sure most of the hair bands would say, "Somebody paid me to do it." The one song that [...]
Welcome to Muruch's new home: Muruch.com ! A huge amount of thanks and cheers to Matthew of Song, By Toad for all of the hard work he did in transferring Muruch to its own domain and especially for providing hosting for the blog. He's also working on a redesign to replace this temporary template. He is a saint, no matter what he says! Please update your bookmarks, blogrolls, and any other links to the old blog. If you need the new links to individual reviews, please just email or comment and [...]
Welcome to Muruch's new home: Muruch.com ! A huge amount of thanks and cheers to Matthew of Song, By Toad for all of the hard work he did in transferring Muruch to its own domain and especially for providing hosting for the blog. He's also working on a redesign to replace this temporary template. He is a saint, no matter what he says! Please update your bookmarks, blogrolls, and any other links to the old blog. If you need the new links to individual reviews, please just email or comment and [...]

Today you get eight versions of painter-turned-music-legend Joni Mitchell's ( fansite wiki AMG ) 1971 " River ." She first started singing by belting out Christmas carols in a children's hospital. By 1971 she was in California, missing the winters of Canada and writing a "selfish and sad" paean to the end of a relationship. I don't have a lot to say about this song, except that I had planned at one point to include every single one of these versions on this year's compilation, Have Yourself A Depressing Little Christmas. (Watch this [...]
Joni Mitchell's "River" has become, in many ways, a Christmas standard. To be honest, I've never quite understood this because the song is really quite depressing… and who wants to be depressed during the Christmas season? I guess the fact that the song opens with "Jingle Bells" makes the connection to Christmas that [...]

I adore this song which originally appeared on The Counting Crows debut August & Everything After in 1993. A Murder of One is a live favourite with fans of the band because of the song's raw energy and grungy guitar chords. This version by Canadian singer songwriter Allison Crowe is so beautiful. Allison transforms this energetic song into a piano based gentle love song with superb results. Her strong vocals complete the transformation and creates one of the best cover versions I have heard. Allison Crowe - A Murder of One (Counting Crows) [...]

I'm not exactly the patriotic type. I've been to more countries than states; I prefer solitude to mall culture. Heck, we don't even have basic cable. But all power-hungry, commercial/corporate complex, bittersweet modernity aside, I believe in the ideals which frame the constant American dialogue with itself -- including first and foremost the requirement that we keep talking, lest we abdicate our role as government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And I believe that, by definition, as music which speaks of and for [...]

Back in the extremely early stages of The Duke's courtship of The Duchess, she was interning at The Cable Natural History Museum. One of the perks of the internship was the board. She lived on Lake Namekagon in a little apartment above a garage in the middle of the woods. It was a wonderful little place to spend the summer. The only radio station worth listening to back then was called The Baer – or something like that – from Duluth. They used to do these Rock Block Weekends where they would play four songs in a row [...]

As an unabashed child of the 80s, I grew up with a particular image of Cyndi Lauper in my head, and it wasn't pretty: hanks of bright-colored hair, that highpitched little-girl voice, the theme song to Goonies, that weird staged event with beer-bellied wrestler Lou Albano that years later comes across as even more creepy than it was back then. But something was in the air, even then -- something which didn't gell with that synth-heavy dance-pop production and bouncy airhead persona. It turned out other songwriters really respected Cyndi Lauper. [...]

Katrina, Narissa, and Amelia Nields, Clearwater Folk Festival, 2005 As a volunteer for performer check-in at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival for several years, I had the rare privilege of meeting the children of several notable folk musicians, from Lucy Kaplansky's adopted daughter to Katrina Nields' newborn. Seeing my favorite musicians up close and personal was always a treat. But seeing folk musicians in parenting mode always felt like peering behind the curtain of the public persona to something real. And once you see that [...]

Hands down, the most re-recorded song of the last decade from the vast catalog of Canadian poet, novelist, and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen is Hallelujah ; the newly-reposted MOKB Covers Project: Hallelujah counts over forty recent versions, and the list is by no means complete. I have no complaints about this -- it's a great song, which, like so many of Cohen's best work, moves fluidly between grand mythos and intimate confession to give voice to strong yet otherwise unexpressable feeling. Problematically, however, the vast majority of covers of this song are [...]

The original MOKB Covers Project post of Hallelujah has been dead for many moons, but it is still one of the most commented on, linked up and talked about posts we've put together here at MOKB. I've promised many a reader that I would one day re-host all the files for everyone to enjoy. We revisited the song and found a plethora of new versions since last we posted it. There are even more we saw but couldn't find. As always , if you have a [...]

John Lennon died 27 years ago, on December 8th, 1980; I was seven, and the event was meaningless. But since then, like every one of you, I've absorbed the Beatles canon -- which means, among other things, recognizing the loss of musical potential and statesmanship that marks Lennon's passing. Mostly, it's the statesmanship I recognize. Though each Beatle -- both the still-going and the dearly departed -- went on to a fruitful solo career after the band broke up, for me, the Beatles as a cultural phenomenon are as much more a sum [...]

I've been kicking around the eMusic site looking for nice Xmas music. Which was where I found Allison Crowe . She has a nice album called Tidings . A batch of new and traditional holiday songs. There are a few below for you listening pleasure. She plays a sweet piano and sings with an angelic voice . Listen: Allison Crowe ~ In The Bleak Midwinter (my favorite Xmas [...]

The 4th of July ... a day of fireworks, barbecues, Will Smith kicking some alien butt , and parades. A day we celebrate for giving King George the middle finger. In reality, the 4th of July, 1776 was only the day the Declaration of Independence was finished, not the day it was voted on and signed. It's kind of ironic that England is now one of the few countries who support the U.S. regardless of how insane our elected leader's policies are. Pavement - No More Kings : School House Rock! [...]