The first new Son Volt full-length in seven years, Okemah and the Melody of Riot boasts exactly one original member: Jay Farrar, the band’s founder, frontman, and songwriter. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. After contributing a track to an Alejandro Escovedo tribute compilation, Farrar, Mike Heidorn, and Jim and Dave Boquist planned to […]
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What makes for a great death-metal band? The vocals — guttural roars and growls — are savage. The lyrics are painfully dark. The tempo is abrupt, the guitar-play fast and complex. And the guy on the drums is a human battering ram. Springfield gets a rare opportunity to sample some of the region’s best death-metal […]
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Don Smith began playing the trumpet in 1954 as a high-school sophomore. He soon joined the musicians’ union in Lincoln, Ill., and two years later became leader of his own band. During the ensuing half-century, Smith has mostly stayed true to his big-band beginnings, with a few forays into rock & roll and jazz. “We […]
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sound patrol
It’s hard to hate the Ying Yang Twins as much as I should, but it’s equally hard to defend them. In the interest of full disclosure, I was ushered into puberty by the Rolling Stones — no amount of Germaine Greer could repair the damage those crafty über-misogynists wrought upon my tender psyche with “Backstreet […]
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Any Rooftop Roots Festival fans remember last year’s soggy bottom show? About a song-and-a-half into the event, a raging tempest helped us all decide the best way to enjoy a rooftop in this festival was over our heads. All turned out dry and well though, thanks to the helpful hands of volunteers hauling gear and […]
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A circus of soul
Victor Wooten picked up the bass at the age of 3 and never looked back. “Back then, it was a chance to be like my brothers,” Wooten says. “All my brothers were playing, and this was an opportunity for me to do what they were doing. Here was my chance to belong.” Wooten’s four brothers […]
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sound patrol 6-30-05
Writing about Gertrude Stein’s long and difficult The Making of Americans, literary critic Richard Bridgman likened the author’s technique to that of a novice driver: “Periodically there are smooth stretches, but these are interrupted by bumps, lurches, wild wrenchings of the wheel, and sudden brakings. All the while the driver can be heard muttering reminders and […]
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now playing 6-30-05
Observe Independence Day in fine fashion by going downtown, out of town, or uptown; or head for the lake or a warehouse; or go flying; or remain on the ground. Wherever you go, be sure to join your fellow Americans in celebrating freedom by eating to excess, listening to music, and watching rockets burst in […]
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sound patrol 6-23-05
On De Nova, their second album (and major-label debut), the Redwalls deliver ’60s-era blues-based Brit rock with an audacity peculiar to the very young and the not-so-terribly bright. The quartet’s fetching mop tops, mod-inspired duds, and shameless pilfering of the classics suggest one of the following possibilities: (1) It never occurred to them that they’re from […]
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now playing 6-23-05
Twenty-five years ago, Jason Ringenberg played the bars of downtown Springfield. A young college student in Carbondale, straight off the family farm, he was trying to find his place in the world of music. Decked out in his fringed jacket, harmonica rack, and acoustic guitar, Ringenberg sang old country songs and tunes by Bob Dylan, […]
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now playing 6-16-05
Singer/songwriter/blues guitarist Brian Curran is just south of Iowa City. He’s on his way back from a Des Moines coffeehouse show, heading to Hannibal for an evening restaurant gig. As we talk, his cell phone crackles and cuts out. “Man, I’m losing you,” says the traveling 28-year-old troubadour. “I’ll call when I get through this […]
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sound patrol 6-16-05
At first blush, the pairing seems odd: abrasive American indie-rock idol and whimsical French soundtrack doyen. Like horseradish and marzipan, they’re two great tastes, but do they taste good together? To the few thousand people out there who know her work with Crowsdell and her devastating solo CDs, Shannon Wright is the quintessence of the […]
