Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale are two of the pioneers of Americana. Their solo recordings, songwriting, studio session work and live performances (as front men and musical directors) have made them treasures of the roots and country music scene. In an unexpected moment of inspiration, the two have collaborated to make a true duets record, trading licks and verses for one of the most inspired and fun albums of 2012.
KSUT will feature 'Buddy and Jim' Friday 12/7 at noon.
Originally published on Wed March 20, 2013 11:11 am
If you aren't excited to have the loud, aggressive post-hardcore band Metz live on the air with you, then you might as turn in your headphones. All early reports back from listeners and fellow DJs had been that the Toronto band brings it live, and in the studio at KEXP, Metz did just that. Alex Edkins' ferocious vocals and guitar work, Chris Slorach's rumbling bass and Hayden Menzies' pummeling drums all added up to one of the loudest and best sessions I've seen this year.
Originally published on Tue December 4, 2012 11:55 am
The Wallflowers recently reconnected, or "rebooted" so to speak, to release their first studio album since 2005's Rebel, Sweetheart, and with a slightly tweaked line-up they pick up right where they left off. It's safe to say that Dylan and the band — which includes founding member Rami Jaffee on keyboards, long-term bassist Greg Richling, Stuart Mathis on guitar and newly acquired drummer Jack Irons — have recharged their collective creative battery. Glad All Over is an energized collection of signature tunes from The Wallflowers that fans have been itching for.
Originally published on Mon December 17, 2012 8:42 am
It's hard to say anything about Guards without eventually bringing up Cults, another band from Brooklyn whose upbeat melodic pop draws heavy influence from the '60s. The two groups share more than just stylistic influences, though: Singer and bandleader Richie Follin is the brother of Madeline Follin, Cults' lead singer. In fact, a handful of the songs Richie Follin has released with Guards began their lives as Cults tunes.
Photographer Ken Regan with the Rolling Stones, 1977
Credit Ken Regan / Camera 5
Elvis Presley, early 1960s, with Nancy Sinatra. "I knew I would have to hustle in this competitive business if I wanted to make a name for myself .... But I had to make it to this one: Sgt. Elvis Presley, stationed for two years in Germany, was flying in to meet with the media at Fort Dix, N.J., on the eve of his discharge."
Credit Ken Regan
The Beatles with Ed Sullivan, 1964. "The audience in the 703-seat theater shrieked nonstop. This was at the deafening dawn of Beatlemania. You couldn't hear a thing. Some fans just seemed to be in shock, staring ahead, tears running down their cheeks."
Credit Ken Regan
"When The Beatles returned to America in August, 1965 ... I got one of my favorites. Walking the aisles, one audience member caught my eye: an older man sitting with his fingers plugged in his ears to mute the high-pitched squeals. As I moved in for this terrific shot, I got a closer look and realized I was photographing the legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein."
Credit Ken Regan
The Rolling Stones on Saturday Night Live, 1978. Bill Murray blow-drying Ron Wood's hair.
Credit Ken Regan
Sonny and Cher, 1966. "I truly lucked out with the kind of access that almost no longer exists. 'I Got You Babe' had been a number one hit in the summer of 1965, but the sassy, animated couple — Sonny was 34, Cher was 19 — couldn't have been more cooperative, friendly, and open."
Credit Ken Regan
Woodstock, 1969. "Woodstock was not just the mother of all rock festivals, it was a photographer's paradise."
Credit Ken Regan
Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger confer at a benefit played in Tarrytown, N.Y., for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater Inc., 1969. "He's the son of populist folk pioneer Woody Guthrie, but Arlo Guthrie, when he was only twenty-two, had found his own voice with his sardonic, counterculture anthem, 'Alice's Restaurant.' "
Credit Ken Regan
Mick Jagger's 29th birthday party. "At the party I photographed Mick and Keith with Bob Dylan at a time when Dylan sightings were extremely rare. Why was he there? Maybe the folk-rock icon was curious to meet up with rock 'n' roll's greatest icons-in-the-making."
Credit Ken Regan
"Once ... I thought, God, that smells really good, like eggs or something. I went into the kitchen — this was still midday — and there was Keith, standing over a frying pan at the stove, without a shirt on, cooking up some eggs. I had to do a triple take: he never got up much before six or 7 p.m. Thank God I had my camera because this was a one-in-a-million shot."
Credit Ken Regan
Tour of the Americas, on the plane between San Antonio and Kansas City, June 1975, (left to right) Bianca Jagger, Ron Wood, Charlie Watts and Keith Richards.
Credit Ken Regan
"In 1977, Peter Frampton was filling 90,000-seat stadiums as a good-looking songwriter and fluid, blues-rock guitarist who made upbeat lollipop rock. I shot him in several situations ... [including] at a sold-out concert in Philadelphia's JFK Stadium."
Credit Ken Regan
Westbury Music Fair, January 1970, Jim Morrison and The Doors
Credit Ken Regan
Janis Joplin at the Fillmore East, March 1968
Credit Ken Regan
"In 1970, Time sent me down to Hendersonville, Tenn., near Nashville, for a story on Johnny Cash. I spent a couple of days with Johnny and his wife, June Carter Cash, photographing them at their home. The shoot was both a challenge and a thrill."
Credit Ken Regan
Bob Dylan checking a Halloween mask in the mirror, Plymouth, Mass., Rolling Thunder Revue tour, 1975.
Credit Ken Regan
"Merry players" on the beach, Bob playing trumpet. Thanksgiving, 1975, Sturbridge, Mass.
Credit Ken Regan
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan practicing backstage, Rolling Thunder Revue tour, 1975. "Rolling Thunder was unlike any tour before it or since — an antic, in-the-moment carnival of impromptu happenings starring an ever-shifting cast of offbeat characters. Bob had given me free rein to shoot it all — onstage, backstage, offstage, dressing rooms, parties, trailers, whatever was going on."
Credit Ken Regan
Rolling Thunder Revue tour, Montreal, 1975. ' "What's with the whiteface?" I asked Bob as he was being made up before a show. Nobody could figure that out. He said, "Well, I'm playing these halls and it's really dark. I want the people way in the back to be able to see my eyes." Okay. Whatever."
Credit Ken Regan
Iggy Pop in New York for the Dec. 10, 1984, issue of People magazine. "By the time I shot Iggy for People in late 1984, he had calmed down quite a bit. He was 37, and a cool, terrific, and very amenable subject."
Credit Ken Regan
In the fall of 1977, I did a home take and a People cover (with Mick and Keith) of a very mellow, domesticated Keith Richards with his girlfriend of ten years, Anita Pallenberg, and their eight-year-old son, Marlon."
Ian MacKaye, co-founder of Dischord Records and the bands Fugazi and Minor Threat, and Amy Farina, formerly of The Warmers, form The Evens. Their third album together is called The Odds.
Over three decades, Ian MacKaye has tested a few possibilities of what punk can mean. His first band to make a national impact, Minor Threat, was a clear outgrowth of the hardcore scene in his native Washington, D.C. His second act, Fugazi, was subtler: four musicians, all songwriters, infusing punk's energy with rhythms pulled from funk, reggae and even classic rock.
In 1994, a cover by the late Jeff Buckley helped save "Hallelujah" from musical obscurity.
Credit
Credit Mary Ellen Matthews / Courtesy of Atria Books
Alan Light is an American music journalist. He has served as a rock critic for Rolling Stone and the editor-in-chief for both VIBE and Spin.
Credit Gareth Cattermole / Getty Images
Rufus Wainwright performs in London earlier this year. His cover of "Hallelujah" is among the best-known versions of the oft-interpreted Leonard Cohen song.
In the mid-1980s, a record executive and former DJ named Joe Smith saw that a lot of the big-band greats were disappearing: Count Basie, Harry James and others.
Freelance Whales' members make huge tiny music. Their instruments tend to produce delicate sounds: banjos, violins, xylophones, drums played delicately with brushes. But their songs are arranged in such a way that these small sounds form grand, swelling passages that start out softly, then build to something majestic.
