Blog: 30 Days Out

The season of Mardi Gras, the final big blowout before the period of fasting and sacrifice called Lent, begins this weekend. Feel free to party as you please; here's some music to help you on your way. These are some Louisiana-style tunes to spice up your Mardi Gras mixtape. Play 'em loud, play 'em often and play 'em all year – make every day a Mardi Gras Day. MP3: "Between Eunice & Opelousas" by Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys MP3: "Zydeco [...]

"We Take Care Of Our Own," by Bruce Springsteen is from the upcoming album Wrecking Ball , due out March 6. Catch Bruce and the E Street Band (with new member Jake Clemons, Clarence's nephew, on sax) on this Sunday's Grammy Awards telecast. Bruce Springsteen.net

Johnny Winter, second from right, and members of his band at Cactus Music in Houston. (Photo courtesy Cactus Music) Even though we're a few months out from Record Store Day (April 21) we thought we'd give a little love to Cactus Music , Houston's biggest independent music store. Not only is it one of the country's last few real record stores - yes, they also sell vinyl - but Cactus goes out of its way to book some really cool people to show up and play live music. In [...]

Paul McCartney will peform an intimate concert from Capitol Studios in Hollywood on Thursday, Feb. 9. You can stream it for free on iTunes - it's to help promote his new album Kisses On The Bottom , a collection of love songs that comes out today. The concert begins at 4 p.m. EST/7 p.m. PST here . From the news release: Kisses On The Bottom is a collection of standards Paul grew up listening to in his childhood, including two new McCartney compositions "My Valentine" and "Only Our Hearts." With [...]

The new album from the recently reformed Van Halen is out today - A Different Kind of Truth kicks ass, if you're into that kind of thing. David Lee Roth looks like he partied way too much back in the 1980s, but he still sings great and Eddie Van Halen hasn't lost a step on guitar. Here are the boys doing an acoustic version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." Purchase Van Halen tour tickets

Chuck Berry, still rockin' at age 85. Long past the half-century mark, rock and roll is now nearing senior citizen status. Yesterday we marked the 53rd anniversary of the deaths of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie Valens, and we've had some tragic losses in the past couple weeks (Etta James, Johnny Otis, etc.). But one of our greatest original rockers is still with us - Chuck Berry, still rockin' (sometimes) at age 85. He has some health issues, but he apparently still performs at the Blueberry Hill restaurant in St. Louis, where [...]

Repost: Published in 2009, still of interest today. To this day, people still mourn the musical talent who died in a plane crash in the early morning hours of Feb. 3, 1959. A small airplane, carrying rock stars Buddy Holly, J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson and Ritchie Valens, crashed only minutes after taking off from Mason City, Iowa, in a snowstorm. The three had just played the "Winter Dance Party" (see yesterday's post ) and were heading to the next stop in [...]

Wilco returns to 'Austin City Limits' for its fourth appearance. (Photo courtesy of Scott Newton/KRLU) "When people ask what kind of music 'Austin City Limits' stands for," executive producer Terry Lickona says, " there's one band that sums it up better than any other –Wilco!" Airing this Saturday, Feb. 4, this is the fourth appearance of this veteran modern rock band on the TV show. Concentrating on its latest release The Whole Love , the Chicago sextet puts such stellar tracks as "Art of Almost," "One Wing" and "Dawned [...]

"Soul Train" creator Don Cornelius is dead, apparently a suicide. He was 75 years old. "Soul Train" became the longest-running first-run nationally syndicated show in television history, bringing African American music and style to the world for 35 years. Cornelius stopped hosting the show in 1993, and "Soul Train" ceased production in 2006. Story from Los Angeles Times on Don Cornelius

Jack White performs impromptu at last year's SXSW festival. Jack White's new solo album is called Blunderbuss and it's out April 24 on his Third Man label. The first single is a low-key tune called "Love Interruption." In a press release, White said Blunderbuss is "an album I couldn't have released until now. I've put off making records under my own name for a long time but these songs feel like they could only be presented under my name. These songs were written from scratch, had [...]

Reblogged from 30 Days Out: Well, here we are. Mardi Gras, for all intents and purposes, is New Orleans. The parades, the beads, the coins, the crowds, the costumes, the bare breasts ... ahem, that's Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Many places celebrate Mardi Gras around the country - and of course they celebrate "Carnival" in other parts of the world. My favorite Mardi Gras is the old-timey party they throw in Mamou, Louisiana, a small town in "northern" Cajun country (north of where Interstate 10 crosses the town of Crowley). ...

Here are Beatles producer George Martin, his son Giles and Dhani Harrison (son of George) listening to a mix of "Here Comes The Sun." At one point Dhani turns up a channel with a lost electric guitar solo for the song that gives it a totally different feel. Fascinating.

Jamie Hince (left) and Alison Mosshart of The Kills Editor's Note : Our Austin correspondent Lily Angelle kicks off our live music season with a dispatch from Austin. Following a morning of apocalyptic rainfall in Austin, people gathered at a puddly, muddy Stubb's BBQ to see The Kills, although it's safe to say about 90 percent of the crowd just wanted to see front woman Alison Mosshart. My cohort and I, however, were there primarily to see the opening band [...]

Editor's Note : This is a repost of an item we ran a couple of years ago, reappearing here to help get everyone in that Mardi Gras mood. The links have been updated and the Meters are still not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Radio used to be magic. When the stars aligned, and the right artist played the right venue and radio was there, it could be just beautiful. Here's one of those moments: January 1977, at the Showboat Lounge in the Fat City entertainment district of Metairie, which is a suburb [...]

Why Miley Cyrus? Well, today marks the release of Chimes of Freedom , a 4-CD, 76-song set featuring various artists doing the songs of Bob Dylan. It's all to benefit Amnesty International, the human rights organization, on the occasion of its 50-year anniversary. The likes of My Morning Jacket, Tom Morello, Ziggy Marley, Flogging Molly, Joan Baez, Maroon 5, Queens of the Stone Age, Steve Earle and many more show up for this event, which makes one wonder why they chose Hannah Montana doing "You're Going To Make Me Lonesome When You Go" as the first video. [...]

Iggy Pop, Mike Watt and Ron Asheton of the Stooges A little Austin-tacious memory for you: Iggy Pop and the re-formed Stooges playing an in-store at Waterloo Records during SXSW 2007. The four-song set was as rambunctious as the preshow process - limited by fire marshals to a maximum of 250 people, Waterloo employees had to juggle a line of about 1,000 people before letting just some of those inside. We got in, luckily, but hundreds more stood in the parking lot and peered through the record store's [...]

While we begin the big buildup to this year's South by Southwest conference/festival/brain fry in Austin, we want to fondly recall a few of our past experiences. This one took place in 2010, with Tom Morello, Boots Riley and the Street Sweeper Social Club. They're doing "The Oath," a standout from the band's first album.

Etta James Completing the macabre trilogy this week for R&B artists, singer Etta James has died. She suffered from dementia, kidney problems and leukemia and was just short of 74 years old. Her hits included "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last." CNN obit on Etta James MP3: "The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry)" MP3: "At Last" [...]

Etta James Completing the macabre trilogy this week for R&B artists, singer Etta James has died. She suffered from dementia, kidney problems and leukemia and was just short of 74 years old. Her hits included "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last." CNN obit on Etta James MP3: "Good Rockin' Daddy" MP3: "The Wallflower (Dance With Me Henry)" [...]

Jimmy Castor Rough week for fans of raunchy R&B: we lost both Jimmy Castor, creator of the timeless "Troglodyte," as well as the highly influential Johnny Otis, best known for "Willy and the Hand Jive." Saxophonist Jimmy Castor, who headlined the Jimmy Castor Band, and whose biggest hit, 1972′s "Troglodyte (Cave Man)" has been sampled by the likes of Madonna, Kanye West, the Wu-Tang Clan, N.W.A., Christina Aguilera and Blackstreet, died Monday in Las Vegas. He was 64. Castor's songs were known for featuring a recurring cast of characters including a caveman who chants "gotta find [...]