Tagged: pullintubes

It's safe to say that Paul Simon's 1986 album Graceland is near and dear to a lot of folks' hearts around HT headquarters. The landmark album was considered somewhat of a "comeback" record for the legendary singer-songwriter, who was coming off the disappointment of 19832s Hearts & Bones , which at the time had many considering if Simon's best days were already behind him. The Queens native answered those skeptics in a resounding way, with an album that helped to introduce the poly-rhythmic sounds of South African Soweto and [...]

Of the slew of quotable lines in the 1996 movie Swingers, there is one in the beginning casino scene where Vince Vaughn's character Trent tells a cocktail waitress, "I want you to remember this face, here. Okay? This is the guy behind the guy behind the guy." That line might be the best way to introduce you to Jonathan Wilson , who over the last few years has been "that guy," working with an impressive laundry list of musicians as both a side man and a producer, while helping to revitalize the Laurel Canyon music scene. [...]

For those of you who don't know who Kathleen Edwards is, you're going to be hearing her name a lot in the coming days, weeks and months, as the critically acclaimed Canadian alt.country singer will release her fourth studio album Voyageur tomorrow via Zoe/Rounder Records. Edwards was looking to get away from the singer-songwriter mold of her previous work, and make an album more inline with the indie rock that she had been listening to before entering the studio. So what's the big deal about that? Well, she was able to nab none other [...]

Back in 2008, the Swedish sister duo of Johanna and Klara Söderberg, who perform and record as the First Aid Kit , became indie-rock viral video sensations when they posted a clip of themselves in a forest, decked out in flannel, performing an enchanting acoustic version of the Fleet Foxes' Tiger Mountain Peasant Song. The video has since been viewed a staggering 2.6 million times. As a result of the YouTube clip, the sisters, who had released an EP on a Swedish label in April of that year, were signed to the London-based Wichita Records, who re-released [...]

Other than the multitudes of "Best Of" lists that have been flooding the internet in recent weeks, the other big story that has seemed to co-op a good number of sights out there has been all the buzz surrounding the 24-year-old singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey , who is looking to become the first break out act of 2012. Back in August, Del Rey, whose real name is Lizzy Grant, got a major publicity bump for her first self-released single Video Games , when influential music site Pitchfork anointed it with the Best New Track distinction, helping to launch [...]

Running from 1976 to 1981, the original five-season, 120-episode run of The Muppet Show, as well as the 1979 feature-length film The Muppet Movie, left an indelible mark on the majority of the HT Staff with its mix of love-able characters, kitschy smart humor (much of it which went over our heads at the time) and celebrity guests appearances. So we couldn't have been more elated to learn that the franchise, which seemed to mostly disappear from the world of pop culture in recent years, was going to get the reboot treatment thanks to Jason Segel. The actor, has been very vocal [...]

Admittedly I didn't know very much about the music and career of Kate Bush before sitting down to write this post, but after doing some research I learned the British singer-songwriter's story is quite fascinating. Ms. Bush earned early success right out of the gate with the release of her critically-acclaimed 1978 debut album The Kick Inside , at the tender age of 19. The record peaked at number three on the UK charts, and the album's first single, Withering Heights, earned Bush the rather interesting distinction of becoming the first women to have a number one single [...]

As much as we try to stay on top of new releases, every year there's inevitably is a handful of albums that slip under our collective radars, only managing to grab our attention months down the line. Thus is the case with the with remarkable story behind No Time For Dreaming , the debut record from the 63-year-old soul singer Charles Bradley , which was released via Daptone Records at the beginning of this year. Bradley's dreams of becoming a musician began all the back in 1962, when his sister took him to see James Brown play [...]

For the uninitiated the music of Tom Waits is a challenge at best. It's slightly abrasive, filled with odd guitar tunings, clanking rhythms, off-beat time signatures and of course Waits' unmistakable vocals, which sound something like a ragged world-worn homeless man that has been drinking cheap whiskey and smoking unfiltered cigarettes for the last 50 years. While those things might be a turn off for some people, they are the things that his scores of dedicated fans love about the idiosyncratic singer-songwriter . Waits' music is as undeniably progressive as it is familiar, a hauntingly creaky blend of rock, folk, jazz, blues and [...]

In the pantheon on great "lost" albums, the Beach Boys ' Smile , may be the one that has been the most sought after by fans. The album was intended be the follow up to the band's seminal release Pet Sounds , and was described by Brian Wilson in an October 1966 interview as "a teenage symphony to God." Rumors have swirled for years about the recording sessions for the album, which included a lot of turmoil from within the band, a decent amount of drug use and a healthy dose of bizarre behavior from Brian Wilson , [...]

While Real Estate may be one of the more buzzed about bands in recent months, those that are trying to find them via a simple internet search might find themselves suddenly interested in buying some property, before they actually find their way to some information about the Brooklyn-via-New Jersey act . The young three-piece, who have spawned numerous side-projects, are among the new crop of lo-fi psychedelic rock bands that happily exist in an interesting gray area that attracts both jamband and indie-rock fans, with their laid back blend of jangly guitar, hazy day-glo vocals and the occasional [...]

When you talk about the venues that played a pivotal role in shaping New York City's rock scene, certain ones come to mind immediately. The Fillmore East, CBGB's and The Wetlands all left their mark, with both those that played gigs there, as well as those that frequented them, some almost on a nightly basis. Seemingly overlooked in this discussion was the importance of the Cafe au Go Go , a tiny club, with notoriously bad sight lines, located in the basement of 152 Bleecker Street, which from the period of 1964 to 1969 hosted every important and influential rock, folk, blues, jazz [...]

Over the last few years, the music world has been taken over by a new wave of "British Invasion" bands that have brought a diverse swath of styles and sounds across the Atlantic to captivate American audiences. Acts such as Adele, Mumford & Sons and Foals have all found big audiences in the U.S. Any list of UK-based breakout bands would be severely lacking if it also didn't include Florence & The Machine - the recording moniker of one Florence Welch. Welch's enchanting baroque-pop, unique fashion style and powerful live [...]

Marketa Irglova storybook rise to fame began at the age of 17 with her starring role as "Girl", alongside Glen Hansard, front man of Irish folk-rockers The Frames, in the 2007 musical-drama Once . The unexpected runaway success of the movie, which cost only $160,000 to make, and has grossed over $20 million world worldwide, garnered the pair an Oscar for Best Original Song, and made Irglova the youngest person to win an Oscar in a musical category at age 19. Capitalizing on all of that, Irglova and Hansard formed The Swell Season , who have released [...]

Whether they know it or not, today's "beard rock" bands owes a great debt to the musical stylings of The Jayhawks . The Minneapolis-based band were not only the pioneers of the alt.country movement, but also helped to define the sound of modern Americana with their mix of The Byrds meets The Band meets The Flying Burrito Brothers. After nearly two decades, and a few lineup changes, which included the departure of founding member and co-principal songwriter Mark Olsen, the band decided to go on an extended hiatus in 2005 after touring behind their seventh studio album Rainy Day [...]

I think I can speak for the entire HT Staff in saying that we were all bummed when Carrie Brownstein decided to part ways with NPR Music last October, after spending nearly three years blogging at Monitor Mix . It was no surprise that Brownstein's next move was to return to arguably what she does best - playing music, though she has proven herself to be a triple threat by adding acting into the fold too, starring in the highly entertaining Portlandia . With her former band [...]

For an artist that has been as prolific as Ryan Adams , it's hard to believe that he hasn't put out a proper studio album of new material since 20082s Cardinology . We're talking about a guy who ambitiously released three records in the same year, including Cold Roses - the sprawling double-disc of Grateful Dead inspired psychedelic country-rock. After disbanding The Cardinals in 2009, Adams has stepped out of the spotlight performing only sporadic gigs, got hitched to Mandy Moore, became a Facebook enthusiast and dabbled in heavy metal with [...]

I think that we are all thankful that the short-lived genre known as "folk-prog" looks ready to officially leave our lexicon for good, or until another band thinks it's a good idea to mix these two oil and water styles. The Decemberists signaled the beginning of its end when they released The King Is Dead at the start of this year, ditching the bloat and pompousness of The Hazards Of Love for an album of concise, country-infused Americana. Now the genre's other poster child - Blitzen Trapper - are looking to do the same with the [...]

Back in 1996, DJ Shadow dropped his groundbreaking, and critically acclaimed debut Endtroducing... . The album, made up entirely of samples, featured snippets of everything from A Tribe Called Quest to Nirvana to Bjork to Kraftwerk, creating a heady, layered, mind bending and sonically diverse record that has has been named to just about every Best Of list since its release. In the 14 years since, the pioneering Bay Area-based turntablist , whose dedication to the art of crate digging resulted in one of the best scenes in the 2002 documentary Scratch [...]

In a recent issue of Rolling Stone, the venerable music magazine did something that caught me a bit by surprise, as they dedicated their lead album review to The Bright Lights - a four-song EP by 27-year-old Austin-based blues revivalist Gary Clark Jr.'s that garnered four out of five stars. The 500-plus word piece , penned by Will Hermes, opens with the question - "When was the last time a young blues guitarist really blew your mind?" Anointing Clark as a "genuine 21st-century bluesman," Hermes placed him ahead of an impressive list of liked minded contemporaries such as [...]