Have you ever been in the situation where you go to the music store for a particular album and you end up buying something you never intended? It seems like a foolish question, everyone has been there right? I have been in this situation countless times, I am looking for something and I find that one of my favorite artists has new material out as well. What makes my purchase of New Tide by Gomez more remarkable is that I did not know anything about the band before I walked into the store.

For years, my friends have been telling me of a magical place: a music festival at a permanent facility with shaded campgrounds, flushing toilets, manageably small but big enough to rope in major talent, populated with friendly people.  This year, I finally made it out to this legendary event as a correspondent for GratefulWeb.com, and am happy to report that the rumors are true.  10,000 Lakes Music Festival r

On Sunday, the revelers at the second annual Mile High Music Festival were granted a temporary reprieve from the heat.  The sky was cloudy, and lo!  The grounds were clean!  The night before, as I waded through a sea of discarded plastic beer cups, it occurred to me that perhaps a better way to save the planet would have been to sell freely refillable beer cups, in the hopes that folks would use the same cup all day, rather than burning through five or six.  Now I’m all in favor of just about any recycling program you could think of, but refillable beer

Twiin Productions--the event producers of the WEST BEACH MUSIC & ARTS FESTIVAL, one of America’s only beach festivals--has confirmed several additions to its music line-up. BEN HARPER AND RELENTLESS7, SLIGHTLY STOOPID, DONAVON FRANKENREITER, THE BRAVERY and BASSNECTAR are the new additions to the three-day event--Friday, September 18, Saturday, September 19 and Sunday, September 20, 2009 in Santa Barbara, CA.

Lotus are about to break ground in a way that no other rock band has done prior - they are plotting a tour this fall that truly allows their legion of fans to pay-what-they-want for tickets. The Pay-What-You-Want-Tour featuring Lotus is an eight night run of shows in western U.S. states, sponsored by Ticketweb, that lets the fans decide how much their show ticket will cost.

As I went off to bed Friday night, the weather turned very chilly and was beginning to settle in my head, foreshadowing a good  head cold.  And later in the night, our fellow campers had a fire pit going, whose some for some reason just that night seemed to sweep underneath our tent fly and fill my sinuses. I woke up achy and feeling like crap. As I stumbled toward my morning coffee, the sky was cloudy and threatened to rain. I talked with one of the recycling people and he said that though rain wasn't forecast, it wouldn't get warm, just up to the late 60s by dinner time.

After last night's rain, it dawned sunny and warm with a few clouds. The humidity was greatly reduced, too, promising to be a great day for music.

I saw my first Phish show at the Hampton Coliseum in 1995 when I was 16 years old.  I had such a great time that I lied to my parents in order to go see them again at Hershey Park a few days later.  At the time, I knew nothing about Phish; I didn’t know any of its songs, any of its members names, or that the drummer wore a dress and played a vacuum.  I just knew that when I saw that first show at the Spaceship in ‘95 it was filled with so much positive energy, I wanted to co

Trombonist/Composer Clifton Anderson brings his Quintet into the Iridium on Tuesday, August 4th in support of his new Doxy Records release, Decade.   A February gig at Dizzy’s Coca Cola introduced the CD and debuted his new group, which features Eric Wyatt on tenor, Stephen Scott on piano, Russel Blake on bass, and Steve Williams on drums, in addition to Anderson’s vibrant trombone.

There have been very few bands that have impressed me lately in the musical landscape. In an effort to avoid sounding like a music snob, I partly blame myself. My styles have changed and I am not as obsessed with music as I once was. Still, there is a side of me that blames the artists, media and record labels for stealing a little bit of thunder from something I once cherished.