This show was part of a wonderfully curated series by HU Presents, who continues to bring the best music possible to Harrisburg and Pennsylvania. From the first moment we understand the what of a feeling – our grandfather’s tears, our sibling’s laughter, the blurry distance of our mother’s smile; the […]
When Jeff Tweedy plays by himself, there is nothing between him, the listener, and the words. Songs that might’ve felt massive and almost-maximalist carry a soft intimacy. Lyrics that might’ve stayed behind the noise step into the spotlight. Experience is untranslatable; this one felt like a remembering joined with a […]
There are not enough words for love in English; Niall Connolly has found a way around our pretty language’s greatest deficit. With the songs of The Patience of Trees, Connolly has written a collection that explores all the sides of what it means to feel deeply: about a lover, about […]
This show was part of a wonderfully curated series by HU Presents, who continue to bring the best music possible to Harrisburg and Pennsylvania. Life is well-governed by the quietest loves and the loudest loves, with all those in-between half-forgotten. The moments when a snore tumbles onto a shoulder, a […]
Sometimes, the easy disenchantment of the music business overtakes us, its lab-grown and cut stones a little too much. Have you ever taken a fist-sized rock – maybe in your backyard, maybe somewhere in the woods – and cracked it against the ground, its hidden crystals shining on the pavement, […]
God is good and it’s understoodhe moves in mysterious ways. M.C. Taylor Back in late 2012, as the leaves shed their false selves, I traveled along the dusty and unpoliced blogosphere, finding a song on my feed with an album cover featuring a red handprint, no artist named, and the […]
Thao Nguyen came to DC with fire in her lungs, fever in her feet, and a shimmering incandescence that blasted off the stage. Wearing reflective gold for her homecoming crowd (originally from Falls Church, a suburb of DC), she rippled into and through a set that included old and new […]
Like a lot of people, I first learned about the music of Kishi Bashi from a recommendation by Bob Boilen (of NPR’s Tiny Desk) way back in 2012ish. I fell hard for 151a (pronounced “ichi-go ichi-e) and have quietly followed every album since, but never been to one of his […]
I first saw The Swell Season at the Lincoln Theater, somewhere around 2006, singing their songs as a duo while Damien Rice (the headliner) swayed on the ground behind them. My roommate, Nick and I, had listened to the album since it’d come out earlier in the year. We knew […]
We found ourselves settled on a small stretch of concrete, our own chairs and drinks in tow, staring at a small stage with a single mic. A soft-pink sunsetting sky presaged the coming show, and the suddenly chilly early-autumn air shaped it. Most of the crowd settled under blankets while […]
“I can make it, I think.” M.C. Taylor (Hiss Golden Messenger) shared those words in the lead-up to releasing Quietly Blowing It, written in his journals near the edge of disaster in England. It’s a quietly prescient and subversive statement, one that betrays more about what it means to exist […]
Just half a year (or a lifetime) ago, live music stopped, the world all but halted, and we started collectively telling ourselves lies about the return of normal. And that last bit’s okay, I think, as a need for hope is sometimes stronger than the impulse for honesty.It’s why we […]
Late February, and spring rises, carrying floods of all kinds: sunlight, rain soaked, flash, flower, hope. Winter, in all its irrepressible glory, has lightened its yoke, letting the world wake anew. When we woke, the ground had frozen. When we walked the streets of Philadelphia, we needed no coats. […]
We humans – maybe even all things on this planet – are governed by cycles, responding to light and darkness. With the sun’s rising, we awaken our souls, and with the sun’s setting, we slip into the ambiguity of dreaming. We change, but it’s the same everyday. Until it’s not. […]
When we were small – or smaller than we became – my brother and I paced paths into the carpets and hardwoods of our childhood home, each listening to CD after CD on our Walkmen (his candy red, mine bumblebee yellow). We’d trade CDs, talk about the songs, otherwise letting […]
When the calendar rolls over from November to December, it becomes easy to get lost in little reveries, looking back on the year. We live in an age of lists, when Buzzfeed and all of its identical websites present everything in such orderly fashion, a delightful illusion of organization and […]
A chilly, steady rain thwacked to the ground along Eastern, the Patterson Park movie theater shining in the distance. A steady line of people drifted into the doors under the marquee, the Creative Alliance already filled near to the brim long before doors would open for the night. One […]
Life is so often governed by sea changes, those massive scale events that happen almost suddenly, but the world had never stopped changing under the surface. Mystic Country by Caleb Stine and the Revelations represents a sea change. As ever, Caleb sings directly – you can glean certain information quickly […]
When listening to music, history matters. The singer’s, the band’s. The listeners’, the venue’s. My history with Grace Potter is long, dating back more than a decade, first seeing her with The Nocturnals at the now-defunct Recher Theater in Towson, MD, surrounded by university students and a small haze […]
The last time Mandolin Orange came to DC, they unveiled the heavy folksongs of Tides of a Teardrop, newly released less than a week before the show. Featuring singles like “Golden Embers” and “The Wolves”, the songs practically buzzed into life quietly, beautifully, well-suited to midwinter’s passage. This time, […]
This Old Town took place last month on October 12th at the beautiful Howard County Historical Society Museum in Old Ellicott City. Those who attended were treated to an evening of traditional Appalachian storytelling, song, and dance. Music by Geraldine and Caleb Stine provided the soundtrack for the evening. Joe […]
