The year-end lists are upon us again. Time for me to list out the ways I’m getting further away from the beaten path of popular music. The worldwide pandemic of 2020 had a gigantic impact on the music industry. The … Continue reading
UPDATE: The 2020 COVID pandemic resulted in the standard April Record Store Day being canceled in favor of three “Record Store Day Drops” August 29th, September 26th, and October 24th. All of these are Saturdays, incidentally. The original Record Store … Continue reading
Here we are again at the end of a year when everyone trots out their “Top” lists. This is my third year of assembling one of these, and for me it is a good exercise in remembering what the hell I listened to! 2013 seemed to blow by very quickly and frankly, it took some reflection to even remember what I listened to this year. 2013 was the seventh year for It’s Time to Play B-Sides and the 2nd year at the job I got after my 2011 layoff. My wife and I moved homes again this year– five doors down from our last place in which we had spent one very unsettled year. This place is wonderful and a much better fit for us, and we have actually moved into this place– hung pictures, hung guitars and decorated for Christmas (in itself this tells you a lot). We’re looking forward to 2014 as a year of focusing on something other than where we are living. Continue reading
Here is a list of releases that I’m looking forward to in 2013 Continue reading
Fender sent out an e-mail blast this week which, among other things, listed some new guitars in their Pawn Shop Line. Most interesting to me was the re-appearance of a Bass VI! I wrote a fairly comprehensive article about the … Continue reading
From a music perspective, for me anyway, 2012 was a year of next-releases from a lot of my favorite bands– possibly signaling some confidence and support for the hard-working and long-touring truly independent bands out there.
Here are my 20 favorite releases from 2012 in no particular order Continue reading
In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Freakwater’s Feels Like the Third Time, Janet Beveridge Bean, Catherine Irwin and Dave Gay will be doing a whirlwind tour of shows. Joining them will be James Elkington of The Zincs and Horses Ha (that he is in with Bean). Regarding this tour in support of a 20 year old album Bean said, “We have found a lot of our fans were having babies round the time the record came out and those babies were forced to listen to Freakwater more than any baby should. It turns out those babies, now the record buying public, have some sort of DNA thing going where they gotta hear the Freakwater. So really we’re doing this for the kids.” Continue reading
Since Poliça released their debut album Give You The Ghost on February 14th on Olson’s Totally Gross National Product label (on CD and LP) they’ve been touring seemingly non-stop in the US and Europe. They played Iowa City in February as part of their album release shows, so it’s pretty interesting that they will be back in Eastern Iowa playing the Voices Warehouse Gallery on September 25th. Voices is a really special venue down in the Warehouse district of Dubuque. Beautiful exposed brick and pipes with a well-worn wood floor housing interesting sculptures, prints and paintings. Continue reading
The month of January was named after the Roman goddess Janus who had two faces. Like the goddess, January is the month of the year when we both look back on the previous year that is over as well as ahead to the year coming up. I just posted my favorite releases for 2011– here is a list of releases that I’m looking forward to in 2012. Continue reading
I look at this list of albums as being kind of a soundtrack for my unemployment– sometimes expressing hope, sometimes expressing despair, but 2011 was a good year for music. As 2012 brings new hope and opportunity for me, I look forward to bringing my music blog into its sixth year.
While there were a lot of notable releases in 2011, these are the ones that spent the most time in rotation for me– had more staying power. Continue reading
