Feature

While you read, listen to a few tracks by The First Aid Kit off their new EP Rocket Summer. The First Aid Kit should be careful on the small stage at Gus’ Pub. There’s little room to stand among the band’s guitars, piano, bells, synthesizers, pedals and drums. One false move could put out an […]

Tattoos are serious business. They hurt. They’re expensive. And they’re on you forever. So what if certain tattoos came along with some pretty sweet perks? Alexisonfire is a band which is offering their fans just that—all they have to do is get themselves inked. The band has offered free admittance to their shows for life […]

TFC A 2005 comment by “trumpetguy” on Sporting News message board (sic): subject – Best Guitarist? “There is a guy,” trumpetguy reveals to all and sundry, “I play with around here (Jeff Torbert of Torbert, Fine and Cameron) who is great—absolutely blows my mind when he solos and plays his riffs solidly (this is of […]

Jazz festivals are the summering grounds of the large ensemble. The big, beautiful beasts come from far and wide to frolic in the sun, their distinctive calls heard across the city. Among the pack, The Hylozoists migrate from Toronto, while Slavic Soul Party! come up from Brooklyn. To watch and listen to these two graceful […]

In conversation with Ben Jacobs, AKA Max Tundra, a number of paradoxes arise. He draws from pop music today and calls himself a pop musician, but what he makes doesn’t sound like pop. He doesn’t consider himself an electronic musician, but he uses electronics to make and perform his music. He believes radio in his […]

Bill Frisell The big-name opener of this year’s edition of the Atlantic Jazz Festival is singular jazz-guitar musical collagist Bill Frisell and his stellar trio members, the irrepressible impster/drummer Joey Baron, and longtime Frisell collaborator the fine bassist Tony Scherr. It takes exceptional musicians to play with Frisell: The ability, as pointed out, “to turn […]

Morgan Davis is in love. Over the phone from his home north of Deep Cove, the veteran blues guitarist is rhapsodizing, his soft, whiskey-rough voice taking on the reverent tone of a man who is living in a dream from which he hopes he will never awaken. But what could be the object of his […]

Tim McIlrath remembers the advice Alexisonfire gave him two years ago: go to the Maritimes and they’ll love you forever. “They get ignored and it’s not fair,” the band told him. It’s something his band Rise Against experienced first-hand when the two groups toured here in the spring of 2005. “We met some really cool […]

“We were there for hours. No cell phone. No nothing.” Aaron Wolff is remembering the time when his band, The End, blew two tires on their tour van and ended up rolling to a halt somewhere along Highway 10—the endless southern stretch of highway trailing from Santa Monica, California, to Jacksonville, Florida. Based on his […]

Ian MacKaye, punk rock God, is fixing his rose trellis. It stood in his backyard in Washington, DC, for years, but now the weight of the vines has snapped the wood. MacKaye still wants to try and salvage it, so he’s outside when I call, trying to decide if it’s a lost cause. He apologizes […]

Angst-filled lyrics and an adolescent following too-often compel listeners to pigeonhole bands with the overused and under-defined emo label. Hamilton-based rock band, The Reason has both requirements in spades. But rather than burst into tears when asked if he considers his band emo, frontperson Adam White answers the question soberly. “I still haven’t figured it […]