Opinion / Humor

Last week, we deliberately inflicted pain on ourselves and discussed the topic of album reviews, with actual samples (that I made up, but does it really matter?). Specifically, we examined the categories of the Everybody Gets a Rave and the

No recording artist likes bad reviews. In fact, most recording artists are pretty unhappy with reviews that are even mediocre. When was the last time you heard an artist say, “Well, it was a pretty bad review, but it was

After a new recording project is mastered, photos have been taken, perhaps someone has been hired to write some liner notes, you’ve replaced the tracks of the guitar player who just quit, one of the last jobs still remains, and

You may recall that last week we started a discussion of band travel options, which are numerous, ranging from private jet (should I wait for the laughter to subside before continuing?) to private, near-dead burro. This week I thought we’d examine

One of the basic requirements of any professional band is to be able to get to the gig, wherever it might be. It’s one (sometimes the only) common bond we all share. Some bands carry a P.A. system, some do not.

Junior Williams, banjo player with Newtown and legitimate funny guy, has agreed to send us occasional iPhone videos. Here he is with John Cowan, who is doing some touring with his own band during a break in his schedule with

Last week I was preoccupied with another side business I have, which is the raising of prize miniature llamas (one of the llamas had gone off her feed and would eat nothing but stir-fried alfalfa pellets, and the whole thing

Well looky here... Monroeville claims to have discovered an ethnomusicological missing link. I'll admit to a bit of skepticism here. Monroeville says that the outfit in this video is a mariachi band called Platarapido which they encountered along the US southern border, but

Chris Jones, our dutiful chronicler of bluegrass whimsy, found himself low on time this week, so we are re-running this clever column, originally published in April 2012. People that are new to bluegrass music sometimes need some help in translating our jargon.

Well, it’s that time of year again (isn’t it always?). I really had no follow-up to that statement; it just seemed like a snappy way to begin this column. It’s at least safe to say that it’s a time of year