The Big Holiday Season is almost upon us — but few radio stations will be blaring songs about Hanukkah non-stop. Just think, another onslaught of Andy Williams, Burl Ives, and plenty of other ditties driving many of us into Cheer Overload and paganism. Not that I’m a Scrooge, but surely…

On the short-lived but fruitful 1982 TV show Police Squad (which spawned three movies and countless replicants), the character of Johnny was an informant to whom not only cops went for information but also surgeons, priests, and, weirdly, Dick Clark. Dick pays Johnny and asks: “What’s ska?” Johnny clues him…

Most of us have heard the cliché: “There are no second acts in American life.” But what of the Lazarus known as Meat Loaf? The Loaf, whose mama calls him Marvin Lee Aday, virtually ruled the AM airwaves in the late ’70s with hits “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”…

Born in South Carolina in 1942, electric guitarist James Blood Ulmer cut his teeth in funk bands and jazz organ combos, leaning toward jazz. In 1973, Ulmer hooked up with avant-jazz icon Ornette Coleman, who has a singular notion of harmony and melody — known as harmolodics. After playing in…

Don’t be misled by the moniker Hobex — it is not the nom de musique of some laptop-techno-30,000-bpm DJ/electronica type. Rather, Hobex the band both sings and plays instruments to make live music, which, in the dark years before house music, people actually danced to. Formed from the ashes of…

Don’t confuse Austin’s Asylum Street Spankers with that into-the-dustbin-of-history, neo-/retro-swing/lounge trend that thrived in hep urban environs in the 1990s. A great deal of that stuff was shallow and ain’t-we-hip jizz by people who’d never even seen a Count Basie album. These Asylum Streeters are just plain folks — bastard…

Country! Rock! Alternative! Pop! Acronym them all together and you get CRAP — that is to say, the CRAP Festival, an annual compendium of Southern bands, local and nonlocal. The 18 Wheelers specialize in the back catalog of big-beat honky tonk and rockabilly. Will Thomas perpetuates the recurrent yet somewhat…

While some might assess the recent breed of jam bands as successors to the Grateful Dead, this Mr. Know-It-All maintains that the worthiest heir to the Dead legacy is just another band from East L.A. Los Lobos measures up where it counts: musically. Like the Dead, they embrace roots music…

What is it about Scotland, anyway? This is the cradle of culture that spawned Sean Connery, Primal Scream, Trainspotting, and Austin Powers’ former enemy Fat Bastard. Add to that list Snow Patrol, related to fellow Scots Belle & Sebastian by friendship and musical influences. Where B&S couch their sardonic wit…

Once upon a time, family acts were a fairly common occurrence in music: Isley Brothers, Cowsills (the initial inspiration for the Partridge Family, oy), and perhaps the most (in)famous, the Jacksons. Reggae’s Morgan Heritage, though, has ’em all beat, if only by sheer numbers. Jamaica-born, Brooklyn-residing singer Denroy Morgan has…

Most people don’t realize that two tributaries of American music — rhythm and blues, country and western — are linked by more than geography. While, sadly, not the commercial force it once was, the R&B/C&W fusion is still with us: Elvis Costello’s The Delivery Man is one example, and the…

As college students of the ’90s graduated and joined the working world, the Lilith Fair phenomenon subsided and LF-associated artists like Paula Cole, Toni Childs, and Shawn Colvin were like subjects for “where are they now”-type articles. But we all know the trending quotient doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality. The…

In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the only thing the punk/new wave set and the mainstream rock crowd had in common was a disdain for the improvisational flights of the Grateful Dead. Flash-forward to recent years, when long hair and immersion in roots music has become common in indie-rock…

For those too young to remember, in the early 1970s, there was a big Southern rock renaissance. Spearheaded by the Allman Brothers, the South sprouted a viable, back-to-the-roots alternative to the major rock power centers like New York and Los Angeles. Following the Bros. were the old-school R&B of Wet…

Naming itself after Erica Jong’s phraseology (see her book Fear of Flying) for unrequited, driving urges (Jong’s vernacular for “jones,” if you will), Boynton Beach’s Hunger-Thump emerged from an overlap of the local music and poetry vistas. Poet/singer Marya Summers, a star of the international poetry-slam scene, encountered guitarist Jeff…

Believe it or leave it, hip-hop shares something significant with country music and rock ‘n’ roll — there’s the stuff that gets on the radio and TV awards shows, and then there’s the genuine article, the clamor without a mainstream-friendly face. While the bling set gets the two-page spread in…

With a moniker like Decibully, one might conclude that this band was another irreverent, Cramps-descended, demented rock outfit, like Killbilly, the Blubbery Hellbellies, and Déja Voodoo. Rather, Decibully is a Milwaukee septet combining two seemingly disparate strands of indie rock: ornate, neo-progressive art-rock (think Polyphonic Spree) and rootsy Americana (Uncle…

Styles come and fads go, yet thankfully, the funk is always lurking about, its spirit manifest in different forms and from unlikely tributaries. Believe it or not, New Orleans’ Johnny Sketch & the Dirty Notes hail from classical music backgrounds — at Loyola U, goateed bandleader Johnny Sketch (a.k.a. Marc…

Among hipsters in the late ’70s and early ’80s, admitting you liked Fleetwood Mac was enough to get you sent into exile. But damn it, those Lindsey Buckingham tunes were captivating. And while never cool (read: elite/outré), the fusion of folk-inspired melodies, restrained rockin’ crunch, and winsome vocals endures, and…