The 7th annual SnowGlobe Music Festival (SG17) returned this weekend to its gorgeous alpine home in South Lake Tahoe, California, to ring in the New Year. Taking place over three days and nights, SnowGlobe is the largest outdoor New Year’s Eve music festival in the country.

Don’t let the sadness and down-on-their-luck characters on Pedigo’s Magic Pilsner fool you. The new release from Dallas singer/songwriter John Pedigo, one half of folk-rock duo The O’s, also radiates plenty of hope, joy and exuberant defiance in the face of loss. Pedigo’s father was diagnosed with cancer in 2016, and Pedigo set out to make and record some songs that would, in their own way, honor and entertain his dad.

Anyone acquainted with jazz history and obscure LPs will be familiar with the jazz-funk movement, a glorious time for music in the late 70s that produced a set of records that are today considered gold dust. Sadly, it seems to have given way to plastic, artificial fusion music sometime in the 80s. Yet, this winter, Miami-based instrumentalist Randy McGill releases Eclectic, an EP endowed with all the inimitable energy and creativity of that special period.

Healed up and ready to propel their unique rock ‘n’ jamming “California Soul” sound into the future, The Mother Hips launched a two-night stand at Harlow’s in Sacramento in high fashion on December 29. With some new band personnel added to the mix, founding members Tim Bluhm, Greg Loiacono, and long-time drummer John Hofer fired on all cylinders over 20 songs to the appreciation of the enthusiastic 400-plus folks in the sold-out club, many of them self-professed loyal, long-time Mother Hips fans.

Timothy James has been carting recording gear all over the world for the last 18 months. The NYC-based guitarist has been on tour with the afrobeat stalwarts Antibalas, and with the road life comes some down time in hotel rooms.