Festival Yearbook: Hangout Music Festival 2013 Since nothing says “summer” more than a trip to the beach, we called up staff writer Andrew Leahey and asked him to head south, stopping only when he hit Gulf Shores, Alabama. The assignment? Attend the Hangout Music Festival, the world’s first major music fest held on a beach, [...]

Courtney Jaye Love and Forgiveness (1-2-3-4-GO!) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars It took two previous tries and a few unsuccessful run-ins with the major label machinery but Nashville based singer/songwriter Courtney Jaye has finally embraced her inner pop lover. On her third album, she goes indie and ramps up the hooks, sing-along choruses, guitar [...]

John Fogerty Wrote A Song For Everyone Vanguard Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5 Even though John Fogerty has penned some of the most beloved songs in rock history, he still marvels, more than five decades into his career, that he didn’t become a one-hit-wonder. Most listeners, on the other hand, marvel at just how [...]

Music City met Sin City when Las Vegas rock band The Killers performed at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville Sunday night. Dressed in black and armed with lasers, a projection screen backdrop, and a keyboard bedecked with an illuminated lightning bolt, lead singer Brandon Flowers was on fire as he tirelessly ripped through [...]

Greta Gaines Lighthouse & The Impossible Love (Big Air) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars With such high profile gigs as film actress, ESPN TV show host, NORML spokeswoman and winner of the Women’s Extreme Snowboarding World Championship, it’s a wonder Greta Gaines finds time to release solid, well-crafted Americana pop rock albums. This is [...]

R.E.M. Green: 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Rhino) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars It’s worth noting on the slightly early arrival of this 25th anniversary edition of R.E.M.’s first major label effort (initially released early Nov.,1988), of how much heat the band took by signing with Warner Brothers after early success with I.R.S. Here was a once [...]

Jason Boland & the Stragglers Dark Dirty Mile (Proud Souls Entertainment) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars Lovers of classic country might wonder how they missed the previous six albums from the Oklahoma based Boland and his traditional band. But if the baritone vocalist and his honky tonk backing group had been under the radar, [...]

Foxygen “No Destruction” Rating: 4.5 out 5 stars Nostalgia plays an essential part of Foxygen’s aesthetic — at any given point throughout the 4 minutes and 56 seconds of new single “No Destruction,” the band channels Dylan, the Velvet Underground, Sticky Fingers-era Stones, and maybe even a little Pavement. But the bigger takeaway from the song [...]

Various Artists The Great Gatsby Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Interscope) Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars Motion picture soundtracks seem to either be attention-grabbers of the highest order, or, even if they’re decent, fail to land any sort of punch. Adding to the soundtrack’s enigmatic nature is the manner in which many great soundtracks are [...]

Various Artists You Don’t Know Me:Rediscovering Eddy Arnold (Plowboy) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars The title of this tribute to the singer known as the Tennessee Plowboy says a lot. Eddy Arnold is ripe for rediscovering, especially when the data about his career shows him to be one of America’s most commercially popular country [...]

Snowden No One In Control (Relativity/Serpents & Snakes) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars This one man band (Snowden aka Jordan Jeffares) and well regarded indie producer (Bill Skibbe) are very much a studio concoction. The vibe is insular and dark, some might say dreary, with Jeffares’ voice sounding disconnected, vulnerable and alone amongst layered [...]

Andrew Duhon The Moorings (Andrew Duhon) Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars Blues, upbeat rocking, meditative swampy folk and introspective picking infused with country all appear in singer/songwriter Andrew Duhon’s sophomore release. But it’s his dusky, husky voice that ties these genres together, creating a wonderfully expressive album that simmers with Southern soul. Like Van [...]