_Newport Folk Fest 2015

The much-belated finale of the Newport Folk Fest is here. The third part, the Sunday of the weekend. The part where we pretend to wax wise and cast about all kinds of wisdoms. Pelt you with them. And with pictures, too (again, all copyright Ravings). Electrical tape apparently fixes sizable holes. Chris Stelling is here to the left, erm, other left, we guess. And the one thing we can say about him, other than the fact that he really, REALLY should just get a new guitar at this point, is that he’s got really good, intricate plucking and riffs. Maybe that’s where the two sizableRead More →

We wonder why you stop by. Really. We’ve got a couple theories. One is that you use our website the way we (try to) use a music website: to hunt down good music, dodge the stuff that doesn’t get there. Save a buck or two. Make new discoveries. This works fine and well for things like CD reviews; we like to pick those apart for you. Go save that dollar. Concerts, festivals: stuff like that is different. It’s already happened. That theory, why you’d like to read up on a festival that’s already happened, is a bit more complicated: shared experiences (if you went), reliveRead More →

It lay at our feet, dead. Decomposing. The Grinch of All Festival Curmudgeondry. Flies buzzed; vultures circled. We moved on. Desert sands shifted beneath our boots. The sun beat an oppressive cadence on our shoulders. It was hot; it was hot. Through the dust, we could make out a distant oasis. It came closer, crept closer. There were drums, there were horns; there was a woman on stage, shouting; congas pounding. A crowd of some sort of worshipers. We stopped by to see the commotion (these photos (c) Ravings as well). The Suffers’ strangely armed guard and their lead conjurer “Who are we,” she demanded.“TheRead More →

Welcome back. We’ve missed you. This is eighth year of our Newport coverage, including our really fantastic article in the Newport Mercury in ’08, and it’s safe to say, the festival’s been on an upward trend for us. It’s also safe to say that we, at Ravings, are familiar with how exhausting and draining these kinds of festivals can be on us. It is safe to say, we are rather curmudgeonly. We rain on all parades. (c) Dr. Seuss, and illus. by Chuck Jones, we think. Here is what it boils down to: it’s hard to enjoy a three-day, four-stage music-gasm knowing that we’re stillRead More →