We fell in love with the Mumford-esque music of PigPen, but we weren’t quite sure how to categorize them, so we asked them to write this guest blog. Read on. “So, are you guys a band or a theatre company?” That’s a question we get asked a lot. We’re gearing up for the opening of our [...]

SXSW has come and gone, and for Adam Duritz, frontman for alt-rock icons Counting Crows, this year’s fest was a pleasant blur of music, friends, and questionable meat products. The Crows, who will release their new all-covers album Underwater Sunshine on April 10, headed to Austin to headline a free show and record a live [...]

Somebody bought me a subscription to American Songwriter a few years back. I try not to read music magazines because I can get totally sucked in and then afterwards I end up feeling kinda like I feel after I read fashion magazines. The musical equivalent of oh, god, my thighs are fat. But I realized [...]

Our favorite motorcycle-riding, ’70s country rock-vibin’ band is back with a live cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye,” off Cohen’s landmark debut album, Songs Of Leonard Cohen. Phos is no stranger to a good cover. We’ve seen the band take on a whole album of Willie Nelson tunes, and a [...]

Marissa Nadler will step out from behind the curtain of Kemado Records – which named their super-hipster Mexican Summer imprint after one of her songs – and release the self-titled Marissa Nadler on her own label, Box Of Cedar, this June. First track “Baby, I Will Leave You In The Morning” isn’t so much an [...]

Pure X – You’re In It Now by Acéphale In July, New York’s Acéphale Records will release Pure X’s (fomerly Pure Ecstasy) debut album, Pleasure, but in the meantime the Austin band is re-releasing the EP You’re In It Now (Acéphale/Light Lodge), with a video for the druggy single of the same name. “You’re In [...]

Irish rockers Bell X1 have just returned with their fifth studio album, Bloodless Coup, out now on Yep Roc in the U.S. and their own label, Bellyup, in Europe. “Velcro” is a good mix of crunchy keyboards and rock-solid drums, with singer Paul Noonan setting his sights on U2′s great Irish tradition of anthem rock. [...]

No matter where you stand on the musical front, you’ve got to have mad respect for a guy who can go from a punk rock burner at a South By Southwest house party to a seaside 1940s New Orleans-y jazz ballad. That’s John Dwyer though, the musical wunderkind behind SF garage heroes The Oh Sees. [...]

On June 7, Kanine’s sublabel Wao Wao Records will release the first album from Brooklyn’s Country Mice. On first single “Festival,” Kansas native Jason Rueger and his bandmates channel Neil Young’s spiky guitar riffage from “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere.” Rueger grew up on a family farm in rural Kansas, and his songs seem to [...]

Prussia, who hang their hats in Detroit but more accurately call Pontiac, Michigan, home, usually write songs about things you wouldn’t want your kids to hear. On “What Am I Gonna Tell Your Mom?” clickety-clack African rhythms join a old-timey accordion, horn punches, and an overworked bassline. Grating at first, Ryan Spencer’s voice grows on [...]

Make Out Jesper Mortensen, half of the Danish duo Junior Senior who came up with party anthems like “Move Your Feet,” must have been unsatisfied with all the pop trophies and film and TV placements. When he arrived in New York to form a new band, he recruited New York Dolls’ frontman David Johansen’s daughter [...]

Foxes In Fiction is Warren Hildebrand, a precocious – at 21 years of age – Bradford Cox acolyte who creates diaphanous, lo-fi pop music in his bedroom in Toronto. He’s been busy over the last year – running a record label and putting out several records. The EP Alberto comes from Orchid Tapes, a cassettes-only [...]