Email Author Roy Kasten

2012 Stories by Roy Kasten

• The Pines

  published September 14, 2012

  Young Minneapolis band the Pines starts off its ethereal 2012 album Dark So Gold with a sinister synth drone and a guitar that seems to be... More >>

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  Heartless Bastards

  published September 6, 2012

  Erika Wennerstrom, the headstrong force behind Heartless Bastards, has paid her dues, and the dividends show — musically, if not otherwise.... More >>

• Del Yeah! Bluegrass Festival

  published August 30, 2012

  The pole star for the constellation of bluegrass bands — progressive, transgressive and otherwise — rotating across the Del Yeah!... More >>

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  Santah

  published August 23, 2012

  It's late for Santah to be the American Radiohead, but there's always the Urbana, Illinois, Wilco. That sounds dismissive; it's not. The... More >>

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  John Paul Keith

  published August 16, 2012

  p>John Paul Keith is that rare singer, songwriter and guitarist who, by virtue of deep-in-the-genes musicality, manages to wear all three roles... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  Open Highway Music Festival at Off Broadway, 8/11/12: Review, Photos and Setlists

  published Aug 13, 2012

  A block away from Off Broadway at sundown, you could see the glint of light on pearl snaps and smell the macaroni and cheese, bacon and apple butter melting on Texas toast. It was the final night of ... More >>

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  Beaver Nelson

  published August 9, 2012

  What keeps Beaver Nelson going? The teen prodigy has been pouring out unguarded, witty persuasions since the early '90s, and doing so in the... More >>

• Janiva Magness Got Through the Death and Loss of 2011 with This Year's Stronger For It

  published Aug 02, 2012

  When you hear Janiva Magness sing, you're hearing a life: a tough one, a lucky one, a damn hard-fought one. The Detroit-born, Southern California-based blueswoman has a near 30-year career in music be... More >>

• Exclusive: Listen to a the Lead Track From Boss Hall's New CD, In the Pale

  published Aug 01, 2012

  In this week's print edition, we spotlighted the band Boss Hall and its debut CD In the Pale. The group features five of the most prolific performers in St. Louis: Margaret Bianchetta, Tom Hall, Bob ... More >>

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  Boss Hall's High Pedigree and Low Profile

  published August 2, 2012

  On a Sunday afternoon in the Soulard neighborhood of St. Louis, you enter the Shanti through the back entrance. It's a smoking establishment,... More >>

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  Janiva Magness

  published August 2, 2012

  One of the most decorated singers in blues, Janiva Magness wouldn't know how to pull a punch if the song were reeling on the ropes before her.... More >>

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  Kasey Anderson and the Honkies

  published July 26, 2012

  You wouldn't guess it from his hard-luck themes or dead-end vocal scratch, but things are looking up for Kasey Anderson. The Seattleite... More >>

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  Old Crow Medicine Show

  published July 19, 2012

  It should shock no one that a new generation of acoustic-music heads prefers its ersatz-twang handsome and hooky (Avett Brothers), plastered... More >>

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  FEATURED STORY

  The Fourteen Best Forgotten Woody Guthrie Covers

  published Jul 13, 2012

  No American songwriter has produced a more malleable, sing-able and shareable body of work than Woodrow Wilson Guthrie. Decades after his death, his archives continue to yield sweet, unfinished frui... More >>

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  Alberta Cross

  published July 12, 2012

  Alberta Cross is but the latest example of a promising rock band to meet a crashing, burning, big-advance-blowing fate in LA. One need have no... More >>

• Sam Bush

  published July 5, 2012

  We've all witnessed it. Touring artist passes through St. Louis in the summer, and the first thing out of his or her mouth is either a pander... More >>

• Laura Burhenn of the Mynabirds on Recording with Richard Swift and Re-Imagining Revolution

  published Jun 27, 2012

  As we slouch or saunter into a second decade of war, one that isn't really winding down at all -- it's just taking to the skies, led by robots, or being brazenly waged on women and working people rig... More >>

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  The Walkmen

  published June 28, 2012

  In time, the Walkmen's seventh album, Heaven, may be reckoned the band's finest, perhaps even its most Walkmen-like recording. The New... More >>

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  Merle Haggard and Marty Stuart

  published June 21, 2012

  As two of the most consummate musicians in country music, Merle Haggard and Marty Stuart weren't always traditionalists. Along with Buck Owens,... More >>

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  Whitey Morgan

  published June 14, 2012

  If Waylon Jennings didn't exist, then Whitey Morgan wouldn't either. The same could be said for Johnny Paycheck and Johnny Cash, not to mention... More >>

• Shannon McNally

  published June 7, 2012

  Shannon McNally travels the same cosmic country-folk highway as did Gram Parsons and his tutee Emmylou Harris, who McNally recalls more in her... More >>

• Chill Out, Everybody: Best Coast at the Firebird: Review and Setlist

  published May 31, 2012

  Best Coast | Bruiser Queen | Sleepy Kitty May 30, 2012 The Firebird "Why would you live anywhere elser" It was a rhetorical question. Bethany Cosentino can mean a lot more in her California obsession... More >>

• Joseph Arthur on the Unconscious Power of Art and Sound

  published May 31, 2012

  If Joseph Arthur weren't so insanely talented you might be tempted to doubt the prolific pretense of his visual and musical art. But his talent, his gift for realizing his visions, is simply undeniab... More >>

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  Margot & the Nuclear So and So's

  published May 31, 2012

  Don't blame Epic Records for thinking it had found the next Arcade Fire in Indianapolis band Margot & the Nuclear So and So's. Singer and... More >>

• Best Coast

  published May 24, 2012

  If you're asking just how long Best Coast can ride songs of fun, sun, love and the comedowns that follow such sugar highs, you're asking the... More >>