Author. Educator. Musician.
It wasn’t until I saw the Avett Brothers live that I understood the big fuss surrounding this stripped-down roots band. The recorded songs I liked from 2009’s I and You and Love I attributed to Rick Rubin’s studio wizardry, not to the magic of two North Carolinian brothers. After giving a good vinyl listen to …
Continue reading “Concert Review: Avett Brothers at the Cumberland County Civic Center (3.3.14)”
The name Lake Street Dive doesn’t exactly invoke classy connotations. The band name makes me think of smoky bars in backwoods towns where shiftless people drink cloudy beer and think shiftless thoughts. The band that hit LL Bean’s outdoor stage on Saturday night (7.20.13) was anything but shiftless. With lush, tasteful harmonies, beautiful pop grooves, …
Continue reading “Concert Review: Lake Street Dive at the LL Bean Concert Series (7.20.13)”
Tribute albums can be the saddest damn things. Music executives shamelessly trying to squeeze every last gold nugget out of beautiful music. Aging rock stars with plastic faces struggling to hit notes they once reached with ease. Flat duets with a new top ten sensation. Tribute albums reek of the cheap perfume of sloppy nostalgia …
Continue reading “Album Review: Wrote a Song For Everyone, John Fogerty”
I avoided the smartphone for as long as I could. As my friends worked their way from iPhones 1 to 5, I held on to my dumb-phone. I didn’t take a high road hipster stance about purity or blah, blah, blah. I just saw the smartphoners crouched in coffee shops engaging with their phones instead …
If you’ve found yourself on my blog before, then you most likely read the post where I gush over Josh Ritter. Gush might be too minor a word. Lyrically, the guy can ne’er do wrong in my ears. I’m even willing to let slide the occasional musical shortcoming because atop that shortcoming is usually a …
Continue reading “Concert Review: Josh Ritter and the Royal City Band Reach New Heights”
Now in the throes of the Americana music revolution, there are a glut of bands making the same stripped-down, down-home sound. With any musical movement that is generating revenue, the market gets flooded with opportunistic bands trying to ride the high cresting wave and make a living as artists. (For the record, I begrudge no …
Continue reading “The Felice Brothers Destroy the Boundaries of Americana Music”
DAVE PATTERSON 