Geoffrey Stueven lives in Helena, MT or Albuquerque, NM or Twin Cities, MN, depending on when you ask him. If you’re looking for him in Helena, he’ll be found driving his mom to the bank, listening to old tapes in the minivan’s deck. In Albuquerque, he’ll be walking through shadeless neighborhoods, some new mixtape on his iPod redoubling his righteous attitude against the traffic. And in the Twin Cities, he’ll be on the bus (hurry, hurry) or at some show. Try the Turf Club.
A late look at one of the year’s best albums. The internal momentum of Pollock’s discography, seemingly impervious to the passage of time and lack of immediate rewards, remains its most striking feature.
A great live band leaves its ancestors in the dust, then channels The Saints.
The Australian musician continues to step out from the shadow of The Go-Betweens on a new solo set, Songs to Play.
Arguably the most death anyone’s ever attempted in music.
Scott Lucas talks about the new Local H record, then plays a show at Minneapolis’ Triple Rock.
Two days, ten acts: thestand4rd, Lucius, Courtney Barnett, Conor Oberst, Belle & Sebastian, The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, JD McPherson, Seun Kuti & Egypt 80, Babes in Toyland, and Modest Mouse.
H is for Hundred Thousand Fireflies — Prolific writer sings his greatest song at last.
A fully arrived performer is greeted by smiling strangers, watched by a few less than billions of eyes.
Let’s count the ways Ben Gibbard is like Neil Tennant. His eternally boyish and sedate voice has logged enough years to be beyond the reach of detractors, at last.
If I’d designed the variables and controls myself, I couldn’t have come up with any better experiment to discover a general principle of aging among touring artists.
In which Segall christens the remodeled Turf’s most distinctive and enduring feature and re-inaugurates the club as vital.
“Music is just because you have to have it,” says the songwriter.
Has an artist ever played such a wide selection of her back catalog, containing so many words and lines of melody, on one tour?
Ecstatically opposed to a high concept approach, but with visual sense, and moments.
A night of planet engulfing reverb—the mortal bewilderment of Benji couldn’t be smothered with any less.
Midwestern rock duo makes music increasingly ravaged by winter, plays a show at the end of the worst one yet.
Two days, ten acts: Lizzo, Jeremy Messersmith, Best Coast, Matt and Kim, De La Soul, Valerie June, Kurt Vile and the Violators, Dessa, Guided by Voices, and Spoon.
An incomparable showman handles the violin with the light and playful manner his celebration rock requires.
On the Emblems anniversary tour, the band is determined to articulate every sound as powerfully as possible, as if the songs, ten years older but ten times more vivid, can be made new again.
Everything profound she follows with a laugh, sometimes in the middle of a song if she can break its spell.
Basically I’d rank the songs according to how much of the heavier guitar sound of Belong they jettison, not because I wanted that to happen, but because Berman seems to have needed it.
Annie Clark enacts a kind of science fiction story told in the relationship between herself and her guitar.
They squashed my ego, broke down all barriers of self-definition and aesthetics that one might use as quarantine, left me standing there stunned with only these words: What can I say, it’s a great band.
“Stand up, your father’s passing,” someone might have said.
The greatest garage rock band in the world, brought to you by the Reverend Little Richard Penniman.
In which Samson’s big pants emphasize and also encumber the parts of the body her dance pop compels to movement.
I suspect her band has tried the songs at every conceivable speed and then, finding the right one, often at the pace of deceptive leisure, they can finally play and let out their endless sigh.
The London-based songwriter talks about his excellent new album Abandoned Apartments, his recent movie work, and his L.A. past.
In his shifting pronouns, in person, I got the fullest sense of Oldham’s expansive affection.
Last Splash, recreated with astonishing opulence and precision for at least the first five songs, then with forgivably less precision after that.
Dim lights, a carefully prepared stage: Some part of the band’s magic comes from these kinds of monumental concessions to Hope Sandoval’s shyness.
A long-awaited situation.
Kelley Deal 6000 to Waxahatchee’s Breeders, but with a fairer chance of matching the popularity of the sister band.
Case & Co. play music with unpredictable energy, regardless the clarity of the vocal that guides it.
Their status as showmen quickly overrides any indifference to the substance of the show.
Mystery is a limitation in the Callahan universe, illumination a deeper quality, even when the answers it provides aren’t very straightforward.
One of the most straightforward sequels a great album ever had.
We’re excited to premiere Monogamy Party’s tough new album on Good To Die Records, in advance of its September 17 release date.
Hope for the return of the MGM musical, immediately dashed by her rarity.
In an inhospitable country, she’s scaled family life and music to a size that might allow them to endure.
Minutemen vs. Gaytheist: a contest centuries in the making!
If your world isn’t this band’s, then it can shut up for 20 minutes.
I’ll agree with the assessment of Nightingale Floors as a return to form, but not in any way that requires me to whitewash the excellence and weirdness of the band’s recent history.
No longer weary with youth, Marty Crandall and friends make a joyous rock ‘n’ roll record.
Impressions from inside the time cloud.
Certain victories aside, Grant remains a pretty uncertain guy, the type who just can’t stop being unfair to himself, comparing himself to movie stars, etc.
There’s a pretty consistent layer of analog filth, but the music as always comes across as immaculately clean, purified by art.
They spill blood on the land when the audience commands; our love survives because they’ve done their job well.
Oh no, I’ve said too much. I haven’t said enough.