Jolie Holland has a unique vision that pushes the boundaries of Americana. It draws on what Greil Marcus called “the old weird America,” a strange land filled with ghosts that continues to haunt the present. Her songwriting is literary, influenced by poets like WB Yeats, and it’s married to a distinctive sound that includes elements of jazz and the avant-garde.
All of these things that make her such a special artist were on full display in her recent performance at Jammin’ Java.
For more than 20 years, Annie Clark has kept her personal life at a distance from her success on the stage, in the studio and on the big screen as the musical force known worldwide as St. Vincent.
But with her seventh and latest studio album, All Born Screaming, the talented vocalist and multi-instrumentalist has assembled what she believes to be her most flourishing and intimate collection of songs to date. It’s also Clark’s first self-produced record, but it features an assortment of high-profile contributions, including the likes of Dave Grohl and Cate Le Bon.
Those songs rang true in St. Vincent’s recent performance at The Anthem in DC.
Earlier this year when it looked like Jarvis Cocker and Pulp were gearing up for a tour, I told my wife that if happened, I was going to travel somewhere to see them. In my head I thought it would be somewhere in Europe, but it turns out the band booked a few North American dates, and I was able to snag some tickets for last Friday’s show at the Kings Theater in my old hood of Brooklyn. I had seen Pulp just twice before, in 1996 at Irving Plaza and a few years later when they headlined the Reading Festival.
If you’re looking for a play-by-play of Friday’s show, I’m not going to produce anything near Rob Sheffield’s brilliant and extremely thorough review for Rolling Stone.
Caribou soon releases Honey, his sixth studio album, on Oct. 4 via Merge Records. Meanwhile, Dan Snaith aka Caribou recently shared several singles in the build up to the album — including “Volume.” The single is based on M|A|R|R|S’ 1987 global hit “Pump Up the Volume,” a track forever cemented into the history of UK dance music.
Caribou launches a tour in support of Honey in October, and he lands at The Anthem for a show on Tuesday, Nov. 19. You can win tickets to see the show with Parklife DC!
The unmistakable voice of James Taylor recently filled the air on the second night of his three-show residency at the iconic Wolf Trap’s Filene Center. On this perfect September evening, Taylor brought decades of music history to life with the ease of a storyteller, captivating the sold-out crowd with his soothing melodies, intimate lyrics, and wry humor.
Styx — the classic rock legends — recently graced the stage of The Lyric Baltimore. Euphoria ensued as the band took the stage, and thousands of fans draped in Styx paraphernalia crowded the sold-out theater in hopes of reconnecting with a familiar sound.
“You know, we don’t get here as often as we like,” Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder recently told a sold-out crowd at Baltimore’s CFG Bank Arena in-between songs. “And now, feeling your energy right off the bat, we are seeing the errors of our ways.”
The arena’s energy was off the charts. And it’s no surprise. The last time the Seattle band visited Charm City was in 2014, but that wasn’t for trying a handful of times since that time. “We’ve been waiting five years for this one,” Eddie said.
And it just happened to be a rather auspicious day given this is the day 60 years ago when another wildly popular band [The Beatles!] took to the, then, Baltimore Civic Center in the same spot where Pearl Jam performed.
PJ Harvey: I Inside the Old Year Dying Tour
Words by Mickey McCarter
Photos by Nalinee Darmrong
PJ Harvey’s current US tour is not a show as much as it is an immersive experience. As the performance recently progressed through the evening at The Anthem in DC, PJ and her band drew the audience deeper and deeper into a wooded space, created in our imaginations through the use of sound and light, until we had traveled a path that left us alone with her introspective music.
Known for their electric live shows, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit recently brought their 2024 tour to the Filene Center at Wolf Trap. Steve Satzberg was there to photograph the show!
It’s not often these days that I go to a show and I am one of the younger people in the crowd. But that was the case last week when the indomitable Paul Weller performed at the Lincoln Theater. Weller — The Modfather, The Changingman, The Cool Before the Warm, The Calm After the Storm — was touring the US for the first time in seven years and had a backlog of new material to promote.
Since his last US tour in 2017, he’s released four albums — 2018’s True Meanings, 2020’s On Sunset, 2021’s Fat Pop, and this year’s 66.