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Big Science – DifficultySelf-released, online-out now3 / 5 The difficulty with albums ones like Chicago transplants Big Science is that they’re not bad: it’s a fair selection of classic-80s-inspired alt rock that the quartet has assembled here. But we’ve got to make the distinction to you guys (and/or gals) so it’s gotta come down to whether you should purchase a release or not, and ultimately we’re going to pass on this otherwise decent album. What is it lacking? We’re not entirely sure; the song construction works on their confidently-paced “Loose Change Century” and the anthemic “Blind Our Eyes.” When we hit “Headlight Song,” the crewRead More →

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Bury Me a Lion – Year of the LionSelf-released, online– out now4 / 5 From out of nowhere comes this leaping lion at us from New York City, a quartet’s worth of slightly punked modern rockers. Go ahead, spin up that opener; if “Be Your Own Bomb” doesn’t swagger like a Mick Jagger then maybe you’re hearing wrong – these guys are the real deal, and they sway with as much confidence as any sum of Strokes has. Actually, that’s probably our best approximation to the Lion’s sound: a Strokes kind of drive with a more enthused singer (and he’s really solid to boot). OurRead More →

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The Olympics are blaring in the background; we admit, it’s tough breaking away from all the young athletes giving their all. All the hard training, focus, skill… there are a great many talents that require an exceptional heft of dedication, not just performing music.   So we figure we’d showcase this exceptionally young banjoist (all photos © Julia Markowitz). The Mizzone trio (fiddle, banjo, guitar) could just as easily have named themselves The Middle School Bluegrass Bunch – instead, they went for Sleepy Man Banjo Boys. Better ring perhaps. Jonny, at 10, is the youngest of the soon-to-be high schoolers, and we just can’t getRead More →

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It’s that dreaded music moment: the morning after. Okay, so technically, yesterday was the morning after, and it’s well into the afternoon right now, but that same dread carries over pretty fierce. Still, it was four stages of acts (one more than 2011), about five acts per stage over about six hours… that’s getting folked pretty hard, we’d say.We’re still recuperating from a bludgeoning of music, so our mind’s still foggy. We roughly recall one Julia Markowitz as photographer (height? weight? age? still too foggy to guess) so many thanks to her for strapping a camera around (yes, all photos copyright JM) and dragging usRead More →