At the Motif headquarters there is a corner full of white boxes. Their sides are emblazoned with dates, months, years, scribbled in different shades of marker. Some are crossed out and hastily re-written, some boxes lay coverless, or bound in a thick plastic tape. This hodgepodge corner is the Motif archives, and was my home […]
Love Redesigned by Lauren Asher: Though I don’t indulge in romance often (except when I need a palette cleanser between heavier books), I couldn’t put down Love Redesigned. Asher’s novel follows Julian Lopez and Dahlia Muñoz, two locals from the small town of Lake Wisteria, who share a complicated past. While their families are close, […]
What can be said about Neil Gaiman that hasn’t already been said? A beloved, award-winning author who has seemingly conquered the worlds of literature and film, Gaiman has become an institution for lovers of all things fantasy. From his groundbreaking work in comics and graphic novels to his actual novels, Gaiman has captured the imagination […]
Stray Love is RI native Stacey Caputi Liakos’ compelling and candid memoir in which she recounts her decade-long relationship with Ray-Ray, a charismatic bad-boy and drug hustler, and wrestles with her realization that life – and the pull of the heart – is not always within her control. In a conversational tone akin to swapping […]
Rale Micic’s latest release, Only Love Will Stay is a beautiful album that came forth from the dark days of the pandemic and subsequent shutdown. When the lockdown began in New York, Micic’s live schedule dried up quickly as all touring and live shows came to an end. “I didn’t really feel like playing at […]
Whatever happened to dream pop? Around a decade or so ago, dream pop was almost inescapable. Bands such as Beach House, DIIV, and Alvvays were weaving beautiful textures of reverberation guitars, soft vocals that bordered on incomprehensible at times, and mellow synths that painted entire pictures with a single hazy chord. Even further back in […]
Patsy Decline – Self-Titled (75orLess Records) Patsy Decline is composed of Ray Memery, George Sullivan, Jack McKenna, and Bill Gorman – veterans of some pretty legendary bands including Backwash, Mother Jefferson, Von Doom, and Ether. Patsy Decline sounds like members of Television and Wire started a tribute band to the indie days of R.E.M.. I […]
Halloween will never be the same for me. What better way to celebrate an otherworldly weekend than at the gilded, 100 year old, Providence Performing Arts Center with one of the world’s great funk bands, Tower of Power backed by the Rhode Island Philharmonic? To say this show took my breath away would be an […]
Okee dokee folks… Friday night at the Providence Performing Arts Center was night one of what was a full weekend of legendary music at the theater. It started with the first of two nights for Van Morrison, followed by an evening of Johnny Mathis slipped into the middle of the Morrison shows. It was an […]
Okee dokee folks… I was fortunate to be in attendance for the Counting Crows/Dashboard Confessional show at Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) last night. The Crows were on their Banshee Season Tour and brought their friends along for the shows. To many folks this seemed like an odd pairing as one could not understand why […]