Sign Up For Soundbytes Music’s Newsletter
Get the latest music news right to your inbox! Check out Soundbytes’ daily music briefing for people who believe songs matter — and so do the stories behind them.
Get the latest music news right to your inbox! Check out Soundbytes’ daily music briefing for people who believe songs matter — and so do the stories behind them.
On stage, Fishbone performs like an aged fighter backed into a corner and down on points. At the High Noon Saloon in Madison on Friday night, the band reinforced their reputation as uncompromising musical pioneers and thick-headed stalwarts even as bar-band doom stares them in the face.
After years of self-imposed exile from music-making, Jeff Mangum and his underground-rock group Neutral Milk Hotel have seen cult-like audiences grow in their absence — one that sees the group as indie-rock messiahs. Their concert in Madison on Saturday night was a second coming that proved miracles really do happen.
Let’s face facts. When most people think of the Twin Cities, images of blizzard-like conditions and bitter, breathless cold crystallize in their minds as fast as a Minnesota quick-freeze.
Rock legend Elton John gave a Vegas-honed performance Thursday night in Madison that paraded some of the greatest pop-rock songs of the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s in front of America’s Dairyland. And this without any assists from Cirque du Soleil.
Like the hobbled hero from some Hollywood movie, a clearly ailing Levon Helm rallied his strength during Tuesday night’s performance to give those who gathered at a downtown Milwaukee casino an enthralling lesson in American roots music.
Long stuck in the shadow of the metal titans Queens of the Stone Age, the Eagles of Death Metal have so primed their swaggering, rock ‘n’ roll engine that no one will mistake them for a hot-rod side project again. Their recent concert in Madison, Wis., demonstrates their groove-oriented tunes can shake hips as well as preconceptions.
Besides indie-rock hipsters, there was something else that filled Chicago’s Metro on Monday night for TV on the Radio’s sold-out concert: Doubt.
Nearly a year after their last album’s release, Wisconsin indie-rock supergroup Volcano Choir posted on Wednesday a new video for their song “Tiderays.” Continue reading
Jazz double bassist Charlie Haden modeled another pathway to upending the established musical order: the role of the insurgent. Playing for years behind many of music’s most overt sonic mavericks, Haden unassumingly did much to break down barriers separating genres and styles. Continue reading
While any music fan would likely be hard-pressed to recognize the name of Thomas Erdelyi, his contributions to the Ramones, the birth of punk rock and rock ‘n’ roll as a whole long ago earned him a critically important place in the American musical pantheon. Continue reading
After two years of uncertainty and (near) radio silence, there are signs that Wisconsin’s Bon Iver might be ending its extended musical hibernation. Continue reading
The Mothership, the signature stage prop of funk pioneers Parliament-Funkadelic’s legendary performances, has been rescued from storage and will go on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. Continue reading
A new reissue of “Superunknown,” the best album recorded by grunge godfathers Soundgarden seeks to acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the record’s arrival and to resurrect its reputation among fans when so much as happened in the years since then. Continue reading
More than 20 years after releasing their seminal album and then breaking up, post-hardcore band Slint has temporarily reunited to highlight a box-set version of the record. But at the group’s recent show in Chicago, the combo proved they could still execute the music’s bold vision, but not with anything approaching a visionary’s passion. Continue reading
If anyone needs a little cheering up after having to dig out the winter hat and gloves again, guitarist John Fahey’s “When The Springtime Comes Again” might be the remedy you seek. Continue reading
“Come as you are” couldn’t have been a clearer statement of purpose for the music of Nirvana and Kurt Cobain. Continue reading
As if many Wisconsinites’ longing for summer wasn’t already overheating, the lineup for Milwaukee’s Summerfest music festival was announced on Wednesday morning. Continue reading