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The Big Hurt: Clench and release

Smooth jazz, revenge fantasies, and . . . wangs
For your edifying consumption, another stroll through the wasteland of godawful publicity.

By DAVID THORPE | February 25, 2009

A voice from on high

The second coming of Antony and the Johnsons
On his new album The Crying Light, Antony Hegarty lifts his voice without raising it.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | February 18, 2009

Curiouser and curiouser

Sara Hallie Richardson says hello, to say goodbye
Sara Hallie Richardson, we hardly knew ye.

By SAM PFEIFLE | February 19, 2009

The Big Hurt: Marley pimped, Miley sorry, Kanye secure

Music news in brief
This goes to print a week after I write it because of the damnable pre-Web technology of the printed page, but I swear to God that I was the first son of a bitch to think of it: Jackson Browne, James Brown, Bobby Brown, Chris Brown .

By DAVID THORPE | February 19, 2009

On their way to Memphis

The Lomax mine the South, and the past, on their debut disc
Their name sort of gives them away.

By SAM PFEIFLE | February 11, 2009

Study shows country music is still just awful

Who charted?
You know what I haven't done in a while, for plenty of very good reasons? Listened to the whole cotton-pickin' Billboard Hot Country chart! Yee-haw!

By DAVID THORPE | February 10, 2009

Dance, dance, evolution

The secret weekend start the party with Energy Broadcast System
They've been working together for a long time, since the late 1990s in Florida and the nascent Slowing Room, which came to Maine to become early innovators of the Portland electronic music scene.

By SAM PFEIFLE | February 04, 2009

The same mistakes?

Joshua Madore returns with D4988
Joshua Madore and his gravelly whisper entered the local scene in 2007 with The Same Mistakes.

By SAM PFEIFLE | February 04, 2009

Quitters, tinklers, tacklers, and whoppers

The Big Hurt: Music news in brief
David Berman of Silver Jews intends to quit the music biz and concentrate on writing prose, says a post on the Drag City Web site.

By DAVID THORPE | February 02, 2009

Throw your devil down

Jacob Augustine serves notice of a big new voice with Harmonia
The last time a voice hit me like this was the first time I heard Moses Atwood's "Seventh Sin," back in 2006.

By SAM PFEIFLE | January 28, 2009

The Big Hurt: Dare to meme

Apologies in advance for the YouTube clip of 2009
Apologies in advance for the YouTube clip of 2009

By DAVID THORPE | January 28, 2009

The ignorami

Getting hip to Mission of Burma, 30 years later
Mission of Burma formed in Boston 30 years ago — the year Joy Division, Gang of Four, and the Pop Group released notorious post-punk releases in the UK.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | January 21, 2009

Strangeways, here we come

Everysmithever push all kinds of boundaries
Everysmithever, who put out a self-titled full-length this fall and then promptly stopped playing shows, is more than a Cambiata side project.

By SAM PFEIFLE | January 21, 2009

Here we go loop-de-Loups

Six songs of Holding Hands with the Crooked Man
Justin Graves, Nathan Grieves, Micah Joe, and Nick Laskey have roots in the Maine metal scene — and you can tell.

By SAM PFEIFLE | January 21, 2009

Higher ground

The Refugees are strangers in a strange land
Cindy Bullens, who has done a lot of things in the music business, recently wondered: "What? You have to get old to have success?"

By SAM PFEIFLE | January 14, 2009

RIP: Ron Asheton (1948-2009)

Death trip
Ron Asheton's off-and-on relationship with James "Iggy Pop" Osterberg Jr. was both a blessing and a curse.

By DANIEL BROCKMAN | January 19, 2009

Music seen: Radiohead night

At the Big Easy, January 3
The idea for a show collecting talented Portland musicians performing as Oxfordshire's Radiohead began almost a year ago.

By CHAD CHAMBERLAIN | January 07, 2009

Winter to remember

2009 enters with a roar
Sometimes January in this town can be a bit slow. It's cold. There's a holiday hangover. Whatever.

By SAM PFEIFLE | December 31, 2008

Y'all come back now . . .

Diminishing returns in 2009
I've always liked the idea of there being some weight to the "nines," meaning: if you're a year, and you're going to perch yourself at the very edge of a decade, you'd better be ready to represent.

By MICHAEL BRODEUR | December 31, 2008

Music Seen: Anticon's 10th anniversary

Knitting Factory (Manhattan), December 18, 2008
Sure, Ray LaMontagne is huge and the Rustic Overtones saw their national time, but there is something to be said for a record label co-founded by Mainers that is more than a decade old and can still sell out the Knitting Factory in New York City.

By SONYA TOMLINSON | December 31, 2008