The members of Mad Season (members of Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees), have had their fair share of nights away at sea. “Wake Up,” the first song on their lone album Above, is a mini-epic document of their grasping into the darkness, seeking some shore. The steady-yet-woozy marimba (played by drummer Barrett [...]

We leave a canyon behind us each summer. Each year its yawn grows more massive, and the echo from the shout that we wail from its rim resounds deeper and longer.  Dion knew this. By 1972, the former pop sensation had long since outgrown the narrow parameters that the pop charts afforded teen idols (heroin [...]

Portia Sabin: I think labels are caught in a cultural bind: No one really wants to know what a label does; it’s like the sausage factory. Even long-established bands have a hard time talking about what labels do.
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Mac McCaughan: I don’t know. I think that bands are into labels because bands — at least most [...]

Little substantial information exists about Caroline Crawford, but in this case I’ll use my ignorance as an advantage.  The lack of a factual framework only gives me more space to mythologize as to the origin of that voice, and to co-author a context worthy of the dreamy journey on which “Riding On Your Love” takes [...]

This summer I realized that there are two kinds of people battling each other on this Earth: Van Morrison believers and Van Morrison haters. There’re plenty of folks nattering about who don’t care much either way, but there’s definitely a battle on. “Who Was That Masked Man” is a weapon I use when at battle [...]