Bob Dylan may be coming up on his 72nd birthday, but he’s got a 12-year-old protégé kicking at his heels. Ned The Kids Dylan is a whippersnapper from Northhampton, England who plays guitar and writes all of his own material. Ned has written an arsenal of original songs, and the young buck has been out [...]

We talked to our Writer of the Week Tift Merritt about the first song she ever wrote, Traveling Alone and her favorite songwriters. More Album reviews for the week include Patti Smith and Joshua James. More Ife Sanchez Mora premiered her latest song “Hopeful Heart” on our site, showcasing the bluesy, almost country sound of [...]

Patti Smith Live at Montreux 2005 (DVD) (Eagle Eye Media) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars Only the flecks of grey in her disheveled chestnut brown hair show any aging on the part of punk poetess Patti Smith. Otherwise, she’s as spry and wiry if marginally less unpredictable as in the mid-70s when her high [...]

Patti Smith Banga (Sony/Columbia) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars A kinder, gentler but no less edgy Patti Smith releases her first album of original material in eight years and sets the bar higher for anyone else who even tries to effectively marry poetry and rock. These songs aren’t as loud or frantic as those [...]

Who is Emmy The Great? She’s the Hong-Kong born, London-raised singer-songwriter whose 2009 debut First Love made the New York Times’ Album of the Year list. Before going solo, Emmy spent time in Lightspeed Champion singing alongside Florence Welch of Florence & The Machine. Her latest album, Virtue, may very well be another Album of [...]

Various Artists Rave On Buddy Holly (Hear Music) Rating: During the late ‘50s, Buddy Holly helped pioneer a new kind of music – rock and roll, a country/R&B hybrid driven by shuffling backbeats and electric guitars – that became the definitive art form of an entire century. He would’ve turned 75 this September. Unfortunately, Holly’s [...]

The many faces of Patti Smith.

Dancing Barefoot: The Patti Smith Story By Dave Thompson Chicago Review Press Rating: In the early ’70s, Patti Smith took her poetry from coffee shop to dive bar, and in doing so helped etch the first faint outlines of the punk movement. When she arrived on the scene, most who were enthralled by the bird-legged [...]

On June 28, Fantasy/Concord will release Rave On Buddy Holly, a tribute to the late ’50s rock icon who wrote “Peggy Sue,” That’ll Be The Day,” “Every Day” and more. It turns out Weezer aren’t the only band obsessed with the bespectacled rocker. An eclectic cast of artists have banded together to toast Holly, including [...]

The story behind one of the earliest songs from the Gothic Crow.

“If you have trouble writing, just write what you mean…”

Patti Smith, The Roots, and Aimee Mann are among the artists banding together to honor Neil Young at a special tribute concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. The event, which will take place on February 10, 2011, will also feature Keller Williams, Cowboy Junkies, Larry Campbell, Shawn Colvin, Vernon Reed, Mason Jennings, Betty Lavette, DeVotchKa, [...]