Music
Sound Mappings
By Alan GilbertBroadcasting from various points around Williamsburg and other parts of Brooklyn, and with a home base/performance space deep in south Williamsburg, microradio—aka “pirate radio”—station free103point9 is more than just a transmitter of music.
Laura Nyro’s Universe
By Dave MandlSinger-songwriter Laura Nyro is surely one of the most famous unknowns in rock-and-roll history.
This One’s For You, Pretty Girl
By Grant MoserSeeing Barbez live is a little like seeing the Elephant Man—something disfigured but beautiful. Fusing traditional Russian music, post-punk cabaret flair, pre-Glasnost Eastern Bloc nightclub atmosphere, and a gypsy caravan feel, Barbez excites and tingles the senses.
A Rail Reminder: Don’t Forget Shelby
Songs/8 by Shelby was released in July of 2001. Bandleader Kenny Cummings has fused his songwriting influences from many of the great ’70s power pop/proto-punk bands like Shoes, Big Star, Johnathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Cheap Trick, Badfinger and early Todd Rundgren, and meshed them with an all-out, relentlessly pure sonic guitar and bass-driven assault.
They’re in the Mood for Love
By Sandra Nygaard“It’s hard to keep a band together for ten years and not expect some turmoil, not to mention a few unfortunate business situations,” muses Dean Wareham, frontman and founder of the dreamy New York guitar band, Luna. Maybe the successful release of their seventh full-length LP, Romantica, has allowed Wareham to feel at ease with the sticky situations plaguing the band for the last few years.
An Unhappy Ending?
By Sandra NygaardEven the most promising unions can wind up disastrously, like David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen; Conan and Andy; and even Goober Grape, a premixed jar of grape jelly and peanut butter that inexplicably still graces the shelves of supermarkets around the country.
