Please try your request again later. Larry Matthews is a former broadcast journalist who is the recipient of the George Foster Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting, the duPont-Columbia Citation, and many other national and regional awards for his investigative reporting. His memoir, I Used To Be In Radio, was praised as "a funny and moving page-turner" and "a must-read in journalism schools, especially for those who aspire to be investigative reporters.
Dave is a radio street reporter in Washington, D. Butterfly Knife is a taught, fast moving thriller that puts Dave at the center of the hunt for a serial killer of priests. Dave is the bait, not the reporter. Brass Knuckles is the second in the series.
In it, Dave chases a story of assassination, greed, and an out-of-control killer. Brass Knuckles takes you into the world of investigative journalism. Larry Matthews is the author of seven novels. The "Charles" books have been praised as "outstanding works of fiction. Are you an author? Help us improve our Author Pages by updating your bibliography and submitting a new or current image and biography.
Learn more at Author Central. Popularity Popularity Featured Price: Do you love policemen? You'll love Ernie Lijoi. Do you hate policemen? You will hate Eddie Pannoni. The thin blue line that keeps us safe from criminals are the men The thin blue line that keeps us safe from criminals are the men and women of the police force. They are often wounded or killed to protect us. Their lives are filled with danger.
As dangerous as their job is, that of an undercover cop is even more hazardous. If discovered, they will suffer a horrendous death, as will their families. It takes an extraordinary person to be an undercover cop, and such a person is Ernie Lijoi, better known to his street people as Eddie Pannoni, drug-dealer and gun-runner extraordinaire.
In addition to politics and social issues, Ozomatli emphasizes the importance of family and children. Ozomatli has strived to make music to be shared through the generations and have even recorded music specifically targeted towards children and families.
Their release, Ozomatli Presents OzoKidz, features all original children's music that captures the innovation and liveliness that Ozo fans have become accustomed to, while educating children on the values of nature and knowledge. The band continues to perform the album at special OzoKidz concerts, where parents and children alike dance and play along on OzoKidz kazoos. With Non-Stop, Ozomatli continues creating music for entire families and communities. By recreating these classic Latin songs, Ozo redefines their meaning and reimagines their beauty for generations to come.
The core of the Chopteeth sound is Afrobeat: Afrobeat is a spicy stew of modern jazz, Yoruba tribal music and burning, James Brown-inspired rhythms. Band members step to the mic to serve up lyrics in a total of seven different languages. Chopteeth, the "Crazy Fools of Afrobeat", called for rhythmic regime change on the band's award-winnnig debut CD, with its dynamic original songs.
Named after Ukrainian nomads, Scythian sith-ee-yin plays roots music from Celtic, Eastern European and Appalachian traditions with thunderous energy, technical prowess, and storytelling songwriting, beckoning crowds into a barn-dance, rock concert experience. Little did Dave Ries, the other founding member of the band, know that when he bought that house on Kentucky Avenue, he was kicking out his future music partner!
This funny, fate-filled discovery not only sealed the deal on their band name, but also gave the final nod to their new music project. Stella and Dave crossed paths when Stella was invited to sit in at a music event in the Fall of at the high school where she teaches English. A few rehearsals in her classroom soon gave way to writing originals, a process that began with sharing their back catalogs of songs they each had written, but never formally recorded.
Spontaneously trying out harmonies, adding a guitar part, quickening up the pace, and moving capos around, they soon found they were not just tweaking old tunes, but sketching and ultimately creating new ones. Practices became sessions of storytelling as well as a time for fine tuning the lyrics, harmonies, and arrangements. Before they knew it, a full-length album, "Nothing Here Is Mine" was ready for the studio! A remarkable thing happened to The Revivalists as they came upon their tenth anniversary as a band.
Guided by dynamic percussion and punchy horns, the single features a contagious hook and feel-good chorus that has resonated with fans across all different genres. Though the album was released in July of debuting at No. The song steadily picked up steam in spending over 40 weeks on the Billboard Adult Alternative Chart where it peaked at 1 and maintained for multiple weeks. By , the song crossed to Alternative radio rising quickly to 1 and breaking the Billboard chart record for most single-week spins ever at Alternative radio.
That is what we want our music to do.
When we play the single, the new people who come to see us are not just holding up their phones for a video then leaving. You're eating fast food because you don't have any money. Those were trying times and all of that hardship went into the lyrics. We played a show in St. Louis and people lost their minds dancing. We make a Tuesday night in your town feel like New Orleans on a Saturday night. Shaw had moved to New Orleans two weeks prior for its rich musical history and because he had heard the city was in need of construction workers to help rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina.
He had just graduated from Ohio State with a degree in construction management. Feinberg had also moved to New Orleans for the music scene and to study psychology at Tulane University. He had only been in the dorms for an hour when everyone was forced to evacuate due to the impending hurricane. That day in August , Feinberg and Shaw struck up a conversation and instantly began to jam and collaborate, establishing an immediate musical connection and friendship. By the end of the first set, everyone who had been standing at the bar would be standing at the front of the stage.
Saving Charles Action Adventure Jul Charles - 2 It's been thirty years since Charles was the most famous young healer in America and the magic is gone. With it, you can turn anything conductive enough into a computer input, just like a keyboard or mouse. Outbreak, New York-bred band TAUK offer an unsettling but ultimately exhilarating look at artificial intelligence and its potential to upend our world. The Saturday Review, October 11, , pp. The Saturday Review, May 1, , p. New members—both beginners and advanced dancers—are welcome and encouraged to join this lively group on Wednesday mornings from 9: The decision to bring another collaborative force onboard has proven well worth the change of process.
Oh, What a Life, the band's first long-player released in early , gave us "Believer"and their eventual breakthrough hit "Best Day of My Life," which went 6x platinum worldwide, and quickly peaked on the Billboard at number Their songwriting process is uniquely collaborative, with band members able and willing to play every instrument. Whereas their previous outings have often followed a conceptual and sonic through-line, here the long-standing trio featuring brothers Oliver and Chris Wood along with Jano Rix treat each song as if it were its own short film.
There are diver-se sounds and vibes from one track to the next. Following a tour with Tedeschi Trucks Band, high profile festival dates and sold out headline shows, the band felt free from the cyclical album release, tour, write, record and do-it-all-over-again pressures of the traditional music business. With all three members living in Nashville affording easy access to each other and a wealth of local independent studios at their disposal, they started work in January of with a new approach.
There was no pressure, and that really freed us up. You need time to go by to gain objectivity. Water—whether in a teardrop, a storm, a river or a libation—was being used as a metaphor in the search for truth and happiness. It was completed just as a series of hurricanes were decimating parts of the U.
But then the lyrics became a metaphor for something more interpersonal.
And by the end of this summer, it seemed to take on new meaning yet again. We talked a lot about it having a dreamlike quality to it. The idea being, that you rendezvous in the dream. One of my favorite things about any song is ambiguity, leaving it open to interpretation. Or, maybe they are two lonely people, in separate places, finding each other in this dreamworld. At a point in their career where most artists would be looking to strategically position themselves for even greater commercial success, they instead turned to artistic expression in service of the muse.
In chaotic times when honesty is in short supply and ulterior motives seem to always be at play, The Wood Brothers put faith in themselves and ultimately their audience by writing and recording a collection of songs that is honest and pure. Priscilla Renea is an artist and songwriter born in Florida and based in Los Angeles.
The band captures that same dynamic presence on their new album, Changing Shades, delivering their exceptional songwriting and bluegrass roots with the punch of a rock band. We refined and recorded them live, together in one room, just like on stage. Through the years, the band transformed and settled into the current lineup — Scott Parker on bass; Jake Simpson on fiddle; Matt Rieger on guitar; Matt Cornette on banjo and Dunnigan on dobro.
For Upstate, the last few years have been a time of profound exploration and self-discovery. As the band knocked off milestone after milestone on the road, their sound, their lineup, and even their name all underwent dramatic metamorphoses. It's wild and wide-ranging, showing off the diversity Greensky Bluegrass brings to every live show. The result is an track album whose songs cast a wide net, mixing the full-throttle energy of a Greensky Bluegrass concert with the nuanced approach of a band that's still eager to explore.
There's a flow to this album, just like there's a flow to our setlists. There are some aggressive, rocking moments. Some bouncy, funky moments. An acoustic think piece or two. It's a balance of moods and textures that we create as a band, almost like a mix tape. By , they were touring nationally, and by , they were playing the first in a long series of appearances at the annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Bandmates Hoffman, Bruzza, dobro player Anders Beck, banjoist Michael Arlen Bont, and upright bassist Mike Devol spent most of the following decade on the road, fine-tuning a live show modeled not after the toned-down production of traditional bluegrass music, but the full-on spectacle of rock.
We want to cultivate an experience, where people can escape from their everyday lives for a minute and put their worries aside. Supported by a grassroots audience whose members often travel for hours to see the band, Greensky Bluegrass are still a proudly independent act, enjoying the success of a major-label act — including a Number One debut on the Billboard Bluegrass chart for their fifth album, 's If Sorrows Swim — without giving up complete control of their own business.
Most of the album's tracks strike a similar balance, showcasing a group whose vocal hooks and flat-picking skills share the spotlight equally. Meanwhile, the guys stretch their legs on "Living Over" — an improvised, seven-minute knockout that's already become a live staple — and show surprising restraint with "While Waiting," a slower song whose ebb-and-flow arrangement often finds no more than two bandmates playing at once. We're trying to explore the textures and sounds we can make, while still having the instrumentation of a bluegrass band.
There aren't many rules. We'll run a dobro though an amp on a song like 'Past My Prime. This album is a crazy carnival one minute, and it's a psychedelic Pink Floyd jam the next. Returning to his home state of Michigan, Billy enlisted acoustic roots wizard Glenn Brown Greensky Bluegrass as producer, and centered the music around his new band, featuring Drew Matulich on mandolin with banjo prodigy Billy Failing and much-loved Nashville bassist Brad Tucker.
Made up of Kristian Dunn bass, guitar and Tim Fogarty Drums , they utilize multiple looping pedals to create songs that sound as though they are being played by at least six people. Most first-timers to an El Ten Eleven show are stunned that the band is a duo. That attitude of self-reliance led to the band launching their own Fake Record Label, where they have self-released 6 full length albums over the past decade plus. The decision to bring another collaborative force onboard has proven well worth the change of process.
Throughout Joan of Arc, Kinsella and his bandmates have hewn together a true artistic democracy—some two dozen members over the years—to confront the darkening political realities and interpersonal mysteries of our time. Like their namesake—a donee of revelation who became a fierce holy warrior, only to be discarded by a king and burned at the stake as a heretic—Joan of Arc has inspired their share of true believers and dismayed legions of skeptics.
Live, old jams and new tracks have often melted and mutated, members jumping from instrument to instrument in between or in the middle of songs, all stasis discarded. But the songs here are a revelation, as profound and plainspoken as parables. There are kids in the snow wearing cop sunglasses and the crumbling psychic defenses of childhood memories.
There are A-frame houses and white horses.
There are trucks losing their brakes on the hill at the end of the street. Anthemic highs ring from elegiac lows and back again. At times, Ausikaitis sings in an earnestly tangy and lovely flat twang redolent of the midwest, before screwing her voice up into a fearsome roar. Sometimes her voice is electronically distorted, like bells in the sky, into ringing eternity.
Long known as a visual and conceptual artist and curator in her home town of Chicago, Ausikaitus brings a painterly eye to these moments of clarity: These days there are too few bands that make me feel less alone. You got your head shaved cuz of the lice. Your collared shirts have the bottoms tucked inside. There is a collective energy in Nashville, one that Liz Cooper has poured herself into for the past six years.
Liz remarks that the energy in Nashville today is akin to that of Greenwich Village in s New York or the Laurel Canyon days in the s and s and is a product of a collaborative approach to music and art. This community has allowed Liz to be a part of many magically haphazard nights, where the movers and shakers of the Nashville music world, such as Okey Dokey, Becca Mancari, Rayland Baxter, Desert Noises, Morning Teleportation, Erin Rae, Brittany Howard, Cage the Elephant, Michael Nau and many more converge to make music and art and lose track of time.
Her latest album is a product of that pulsating energy in Nashville that has had some of the greatest influence in her work. Window Flowers is the culmination of a year where Liz made a purposeful effort to do something creative every day. Whether it was directly related to music or not, this creative process challenged and inspired her to continually put herself in new situations and pushed her to become a better songwriter and guitar player.
The tentative newcomer that is present in her early recordings was all but gone in the making of the album. TJ Elias, who co-produced the album with the band, sparked the relationship by approaching Liz one night backstage at The Ryman Auditorium after hearing her songs through a mutual friend and musician, Cody Huggins.
Window Flowers is a collection of music that deals with the weight of mundanity, and politely tells it to fuck off. People often remark that her music takes them back to the 60s and 70s, when rock-n-roll felt alive, and bigger than oneself. As Liz shakes her tambourine, hair falling in her face, donning a floral jumpsuit, it is hard to believe she identifies as a shy person. I moved to Nashville as a scared and unconfident 19 year-old so I had to continually challenge myself and put myself out there. As I grow, my music will grow. Music is helping me figure out who I am and what the hell my life is all about and at the end of the day it just makes me happy.
Wait -- I know what you're thinking. Another fucking Grateful Dead cover band? The look, the sound, the atmosphere. Far from being a historical re-enactment, Grateful Shred's laissez faire vibe infuses the band with a gentle spirit, warmth, and dare we say it authenticity. From their killer merch game to their eminently watchable YouTube channel, they're clearly having a rad time and spreading the love. Strangely enough, in a world overflowing with wax museum nostalgia and Deadly sentimentalism, we need the Shred, now more than ever.
Cosmic Cash effortlessly heaves joy. And then there are the jams, oh the jams! Proud to be firmly installed in the new-funk movement, KUNG FU is quickly popularizing their unique sonic contribution, blurring the line between intense electro-fusion, and blistering dance arrangements. Making fusion music "cool" again, the band draws on influences such as early Headhunters and Weather Report, and merges those ideas with a contemporary EDM informed sensibility.
Imagine 70's funk-fusion meets a modern dance party!
Although the ensemble cast enjoys a seasoned pedigree that reads like a late-night summer festival all-star jam, this fledgling "nu-sion" project is growing a unique and rabid following by commanding audiences at theaters, clubs, and major national festivals since The powerhouse quintet's live show has been described by critics and fans alike as "lethal funk", "explosive", "jaw dropping", and "musically mesmerizing".
For the uninitiated, the experience is typically shocking yet the focus is simple: From the days of playing greasy local juke joints to headlining major festivals, JJ Grey remains an unfettered, blissful performer, singing with a blue-collared spirit over the bone-deep grooves of his compositions. His presence before an audience is something startling and immediate, at times a funk rave-up, other times a sort of mass-absolution for the mortal weaknesses that make him and his audience human. When you see JJ Grey and his band Mofro live—and you truly, absolutely must—the man is fearless.
On the new album, Grey and his current Mofro lineup offer grace and groove in equal measure, with an easygoing quality to the production that makes those beautiful muscular drum-breaks sound as though the band has set up in your living room. Despite a redoubtable stage presence, Grey does get performance anxiety—specifically, when he's suspended 50 feet above the soil of his pecan grove, clearing moss from the upper trees. I'm not phobic about heights, but I don't think anyone's crazy about getting up in a bucket and swinging all around.
I wanted to fertilize this year but didn't get a chance. This February I will, about two tons—to feed the trees. The farm boasts a recording studio, a warehouse that doubles as Grey's gym, an open-air barn, and of course those odd pecan trees that occasionally require Grey to go airborne with his sprayer.