“I wanted to think of a different way of working that would inspire me and keep me motivated,” Marshall Crenshaw says of his newest endeavor: a subscription-only service that addresses the recent seismic changes in the music-industry landscape by cutting out the record-company middle man to distribute his new recordings directly to fans.

Dear Strange Arrangement,Your Pre-Thanksgiving day bash is going to be off the hook.  I know this because I’m still toasty from the sweater of love you gifted me from your last Park West show in January.  The sassy sweaty sexy highway has been driving me through 2012.  When I count my Thanksgiving blessings I count you 3 xs! Chicago Farmer! Greensky!

Small venues are a mixed bag. Maybe it’s due to the prevalence of festivals popping up over the land or just the trend of me attending more concerts in larger venues, but smaller venues don’t sound quite as good as they did before. Don’t get me wrong, Cafe du Nord is a wonderful place. As mentioned before, it’s a really charming former speakeasy, but its’ intimacy is a gift and a curse. Tuesday’s Generationals show was a perfect example for why this is so.

Steve Kimock, one of Americas most original and innovative guitarists will be performing with his band at Stage 48, New York’s newest concert venue.Performing with Kimock will be Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bernie Worrell, co-founding keyboardist of Parliament/Funkadelic (and a performer with Talking Heads), percussionist Wally Ingram (David Lindley, Sheryl Crow) and bassist Andy Hess (Gov't Mule) - a truly exceptional band.But then th

When Papadosio took over the Fox Theatre Thursday night and turned it into a hypnotic display of light, sound and video projections, the crowd and band both knew that something special was in store. This was documented at the end of the show when lead guitarist Anthony Thogmartin called Colorado a second home for the band to mass cheers and rooster crows.

The legend of the Delta Blues is a somber story. Its grandfather died at the age of twenty-seven under debated circumstances. The legacy that Robert Leroy Johnson left Mississippi was a new style of guitar playing and singing that would eventually become the predominant defining form of American roots music. Nearly every style of American-born music can be structurally traced back to blues. Jazz and Rock ‘n’ Roll is blues music, and wouldn’t have been birthed without that foundational backbone.

Few producers can stand the test of time and survive the modern-day music industry like Dutch music producer Tom Holkenborg, better known as Junkie XL. A one-man wrecking machine, Holkenborg has accomplished more in his 15-year career than many musicians could ever fathom. "When I found out in 1986 how my sampler could produce sounds, I knew it was pointless to ever leave the studio," says Holkenborg.