Let’s begin by establishing the fact that the music on this three CD set is essential. There can be no argument on that point. What can be discussed is whether this particular collection is required. After all, there have been a number of Bob Dylan retrospectives over the years, including…

“A lot of us are activists in rock star clothing,” Alanis Morissette opined a few years back, and the founders of an organization called Reverb have set out to prove her right. The organization was co-founded by Guster guitarist Adam Gardner (a Jersey native) and his wife Lauren Sullivan in…

The release of the 2005 album Alligator made the The National one of the most buzzworthy bands in the country. They became the darlings of critics and bloggers, and the album ended up on a number of “best of the year” lists. That’s all very nice, but it also adds…

WOODSTOCK, NY—Try to remember the last time you went to a see a band at Giants Stadium. Remember all the people? Remember how far you had to walk from the parking lot and how far your expensive seats were from the stage? Remember how bad the sound was?

Now try…

Cassadaga is a community for spiritualists in central Florida, with over 100 psychics in residence. It is one stop on the rambling journey through America that Conor Oberst recounts on this sprawling album. He visits the town to “commune with the dead” as he sings in “Four Winds.” The band,…

I don’t review many major label releases, but I took this one on for a couple of reasons. First of all I wanted to see how these former indie darlings had fared in the wake of their breakthrough album, 2004’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News, which contained…

At the first of three sold-out shows at The Town Hall, Sufjan Stevens demonstrated that a large band performing in a mid-sized hall can still provide the type of intimate performance usually reserved for small clubs. Stevens was accompanied by a large string section and three horns, in addition to…

This intriguing double bill, bringing together former bandmates, promised to be one of the highlights of the summer concert season. Michael McDonald had a stint as a member of Steely Dan prior to his rise to fame as a member of the Doobie Brothers. Steely Dan had a rather lengthy…

Radiohead bass player Colin Greenwood told Rolling Stone that last Christmas the band decided to go on tour to try out their new songs “because otherwise we feared we would just go mad in Oxford.” Thankfully, the band managed to escape their hometown ennui and came to New York for…