No, Oakland’s Tumbleweed Wanderers don’t look or sound like a band that’s just over a year old. What they look like is a bunch of quirky Bay area hipsters having cheekily dubbed themselves “hair folk rock and roll” and, believe me, it’s entirely appropriate.Yet for a fairly newborn five-piece ensemble, they make a pleasantly tight sound well beyond its chronological […]

I believe that I’m at the point where I can stop blaming Canada for anything/everything that goes wrong in my life, in society or the world (if this allusion does not ring a comedic bell, apparently you suck at “South Park” history). So in accordance with my new-found approval of things Canadian, we can talk about Vancouver, British Columbia’s the […]

The one thing that you really want from a summer jam is for it to make it all feel good; like the sun is shining on the inside and all things are possible. With that vibe in mind, here are two doses of sunshine in music form for you. Youngblood Hawke  Last year, from the remnants of Iglu & Hartly came Youngblood […]

Of all the forces that we’re up against in life, time is one of the least forgiving, yet here is Lit; recently signed to Megaforce Records and with a brand new album, The View From The Bottom. But with an 8-year gap between records for the California rockers best known for their No. 1 hit “My Own Worst Enemy” (the last was their self-titled […]

Everest – OwnerlessReleased: June 26, 2012 In March I received an invite from Everest guitarist Joel Graves for a listening session they were hosting at New Monkey Studio (Elliott Smith, anyone?) in Van Nuys, CA for the finished product of their forthcoming album, Ownerless. Of course, I gladly accepted. This- their third full length and follow up to 2010’s On Approach […]

Dreamer’s Dose June 21, 2012 Despite its pitiful battery life and because it’s always with me, the iPhone is my tool-of-choice for interviews and just as we began, a notification on it popped up which one of the guys in Dreamer’s Dose noticed. Jesse: “I think you got a text.”Me: “That was Instagram.”Josh: “What’d you Instagram?”Me: “You.”The collective: “Ohhoho!! Okay! Let’s have […]

 “The Lost Boys Sessions” Youth, young manhood, and talent. Factor in Travis Hawley (vox), Matt Depauw (guitar), Nick Fotinakes (guitar), Mikel Van Kranenburg (bass), Rico Rodriguez (drums) and their penchant for making a hybrid Killers/Cure rock noise so good that it compeled Rolling Stone Magazine to dub them “One of the top unsigned bands in the country.”and there you have […]