Email Author Roy Kasten

2005 Stories by Roy Kasten

• Charlie Poole

  published June 29, 2005

  Consider the phrase "old-time music": so quaint, so backwards and so harmless that "parlor music" is nearly a synonym. But once old-time music was... More >>

• Bettie Serveert

  published June 29, 2005

  It was a no-brainer to include Bettie Serveert on the soundtrack to I Shot Andy Warhol. The Dutch band cut a VU covers album, douses... More >>

• Elizabeth McQueen and the Firebrands

  published June 22, 2005

  In case you're still wondering what alternative country means, Elizabeth McQueen and the Firebrands have an answer: Pub rock. And what's... More >>

• Brian Capps and the True Liars

  published June 22, 2005

  The first solo album from Brian Capps, Walk Through Walls, opens with a dead-end bender with a backstory: "Now I'm sure I saw the... More >>

• Rock Steady

  published June 15, 2005

  The names have changed but the rites of passage have remained the same. They tore out all the pay phones in those little Midwestern towns but the... More >>

• Joey Molland's Badfinger

  published June 8, 2005

  It's the summer of '69. Paul McCartney is working on a movie called The Magic Christian and trying to break The Iveys, the best band on his... More >>

• Wang Dang Sweet Ol' Twang

  published June 8, 2005

  "Anybody can be in a band. Just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music." Sid Vicious said that. It's not exactly what the Twang Gang had in... More >>

• Andrew Bird

  published June 1, 2005

  If you only succumb to his absinthe-at- 3-a.m. voice or the soft hallucinations of his chamber folk (and who could blame you), you'll miss... More >>

• The Roots

  published May 25, 2005

  What do Hanson and The Roots have in common? They play their own instruments. Every Geffen press release and Source hand job... More >>

• The Half-Knots

  published May 25, 2005

  Behind a trap kit with the Rockhouse Ramblers, Danny Kathriner precisely thwacked the ones and modestly guided the shuffles. He never sang, never... More >>

• Jennifer Niceley

  published May 18, 2005

  So far outside the Nashville zeitgeist (redneck glam, Starbucks Americana and the inevitable backlash from bratty punk popsters), Jennifer... More >>

• The Wedding Present

  published May 4, 2005

  We shouldn't care about David Gedge's pain. Really, we should be quite embarrassed. Typical lyric: "You stare into my eyes/I couldn't bear for you... More >>

• Nikka Costa

  published May 4, 2005

  When your godfather is Ol' Blue Eyes, you don't have to watch your back. And you don't mess around. When kids her age were selling lemonade on... More >>

• Dave Insley and the Careless Smokers

  published April 27, 2005

  Punk rockers aren't supposed to like country. Tradition, memory, moral consequences, actually playing and singing in tune -- that's country. Not... More >>

• Chris Knight

  published April 27, 2005

  Chris Knight grew up wanting to be Steve Earle or John Prine, and wound up himself. All the scruffy strummers with their songs about trucks... More >>

• The Gourds

  published April 20, 2005

  You can tell a lot about the Gourds by the artists they cover: Hank Williams, Minutemen, Doc Pomus, Velvet Underground, Ted Hawkins,... More >>

• Karrin Allyson

  published April 20, 2005

  In 2001 Kansas City jazz singer Karrin Allyson set a gold standard for her generation of vocalists. Ballads: Remembering John... More >>

• Gone, Daddy, Gone

  published April 20, 2005

  It's late December 1953. Johnnie Johnson's saxophone player is sick and can't make the biggest money gig of the year: New Year's Eve at the... More >>

• Snideways

  published April 13, 2005

  Are rock (or country or hip-hop or Tin Pan Alley) lyrics poetry? Are we really going to have this debate again? It's an old one, to be sure, and... More >>

• Steve Earle and the Dukes

  published April 6, 2005

  Steve Earle was right: The revolution starts now. He just didn't expect the neo-cons to be the ones running it. One can almost see the... More >>

• Rising South

  published March 30, 2005

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• Love-Hate

  published March 23, 2005

  Last December we profiled local jazz vocalist Erin Bode in these pages ["Not Norah," December 8, 2004]. The next week her debut album, Don't... More >>

• The Black Diamond Heavies

  published March 16, 2005

  Guttural, juke-joint blues songs -- the kind that shake the moonshine from your ass pocket and transform your fists into the devil sign -- aren't... More >>

• Cheryl Wheeler

  published March 9, 2005

  In some respects Cheryl Wheeler is the archetypal New England folkie: personal, lyrical, resolutely acoustic, frequently witty, most often... More >>

• Domo Arigato!

  published March 9, 2005

  To quote Robert Christgau: This is not punk rock. This is L.P. (a nickname from high school; she won't reveal what lies behind the initials), the... More >>