Get out your hemp pencils and mark your calendars — the Great American Hemp and Blues Festival is putting tickets on sale 4/20! On July 10, this music extravaganja will take over the Earth Ballroom at Mohegan Sun. Headlining the event is Rhode Island Music Hall of Fame 2019 inductee James Montgomery, who will […]
To lead off, I have to give my support to the workers of Stop & Shop who are forced to forgo their wages while the company tries to replace them with Johnny 5s from Short Circuit. Please do not cross their picket line. Moving on… The first time I wrote about one of Jay Berndt’s bands, […]
Okee dokee folks… For some reason, the saying “you’ve got to pay your dues” has been bouncing around in my head. The late Richard Walton of Stone Soup Coffeehouse used to utter that phrase often when he was introducing musicians who had signed up for the “hoot” at the coffeehouse. I remember the first time […]
Rock Breakthrough Act: Benji’s Our 2019 Breakthrough Act’s first EP came out four years ago, but the RI community is finally starting to take notice. Much like religious minorities seeking liberty, founders Maryssa Morse Philip Geronimo came to PVD in 2014 from LA. Their music reminds me of surfy Pixies mixed with early 2000s Franz Ferdinand. […]
Okee dokee folks… Have you noticed the illuminated message signs along our major highways and the annoyingly punny sayings on them? Personally, I think that these signs should be used for one thing only: emergencies. Instead, they visually shout stupidity at you as you pass. They are such a turn-off because they never seem to be turned […]
Penn Sultan’s Museum Legs — Traversing the Flat Circle Museum Legs is a new project from Penn Sultan, best known as the frontman for indie folk outfit Last Good Tooth, a live favorite in the area for the better part of a decade. Their first album, Giving the Clock Its Weight, Its Sway, wrestles with […]
Okee dokee folks…On Thursday, March 28, Loudon Wainwright, Lucy Wainwright Roche and Suzzy Roche will bring their All In A Family show to the Greenwich Odeum in East Greenwich. It took me a while and a lot of e-mailing, but I finally secured an interview with the patriarch of the Wainwright clan, Loudon Wainwright, and […]
Stop! Look! Listen! You had no choice if you were witness to the wild antics of local musician Erik Narwhal, who unexpectedly passed away on March 7 from a brain hemorrhage. Many knew him as the piano-pounding front man for Erik Narwhal and the Manatees, but that was simply an alter ego for a shy […]
I recently heard Slash say new rock ‘n’ roll was dead till Greta Van Fleet came along. Fair enough, everyone has a right to their opinion. But most don’t have their own column to say that is bullshit. I do. I saw them last Columbus Day weekend and at first it was really amazing — […]
Okee dokee folks… “It’s s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound, everybody look what’s going down.” This is from one of the most famous protest songs ever written, “For What It’s Worth,” by Stephen Stills (Buffalo Springfield). It was written more than 50 years ago in response to the Sunset Strip curfew riots in California […]