Liam Kazar : Pilot Light

I came across Liam Kazar four years ago. A song of his popped up randomly while streaming music one afternoon and it made an impression. Singer/songwriter from Chicago that was a chef before concentrating on songwriting, his music is very much in the pop category. But pop like Tom Petty, Talking Heads, Wilco, and Jackson […]

Lucy Dacus : Forever Is A Feeling

The first I’d ever heard of Lucy Dacus was via my oldest kid. They’d given me a copy of her album Historian for either Father’s Day or my birthday, I can’t remember for sure which one. Growing up sharing music with my older brother or my parents was kind of a big deal. It took […]

Ethel Cain : Perverts

Going in to Ethel Cain’s sophomore release Perverts(following 2022s Preacher’s Daughter) I really had no idea what to expect. I know that she came from a very religious family in Florida, and that she was homeschooled. And her dad was a deacon at their Baptist church. When you grow up in a highly religious household […]

“To Finally Be Born”: Hattie Cooke Talks Bliss Land, Songwriting, The Future

I first heard Hattie Cooke from her excellent imagined soundtrack The Sleepers(Spun Out Of Control). It stood apart from so many in that genre in that it was as much this loose, emotion-driven dance album as it was world building. Though, it very much built a world to live in and experience at both an […]

Sufjan Stevens : The Ascension

On Sufjan Stevens follow-up to 2015s ornate and personal Carrie & Lowell, the singer-songwriter returns to his extended electronic compositions. At one hour and twenty minutes The Ascension can feel dense and at times hard to get all the way thru in one sitting, but with patience comes the rewards. Much like Stevens 2010 opus […]

Blake Mills : Mutable Set

Blake Mills is the go-to producer and musical shaman at the moment, but he’s so much more than that. His 2014 record Heigh Ho proved as much, giving us sardonic and breezy songs about life and messing up and falling in love and disappointing those around us. It brought to mind folks like Randy Newman, […]

Andy Shauf : The Neon Skyline

Andy Shauf is the kind of songwriter that puts you into his world with just the strum of his guitar or a melodic turn of phrase. He pulls from the magical well of classic 70s-era songwriters like Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, and Cat Stevens, but with the sonic wizardry of Jon Brion. There’s a gentle […]

Dan Smyth : I Can’t Wait

Singer/songwriter Dan Smyth is a music machine. Not only does he lend his guitar and vocal skills to Fort Wayne’s The Legendary Trainhoppers, but Smyth is a veritable human jukebox covering over 50 years of pop and rock&roll music in local clubs. Seriously, the list of songs this man covers is staggering, and wholly impressive. […]

Tim Heidecker : What The Brokenhearted Do…

It took me a long time to find an “in” with Tim Heidecker. In-particular, the comedy he created with Eric Warheim. Watching Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job on Adult Swim was both absolute hilarity and mild-to-extreme unease. Their comedy was this weird mix of 80s cable access video effects and mild hallucinatory fever […]

Kevin Hambrick : Clitter and the Clatter

My good friend and fellow music writer DM Jones once said of Kevin Hambrick, “Psychedelic rockers, guitar-pop nuggets and poignant acoustic numbers coexist easily in Hambrick’s world.” No truer statement could be made of the musical world of Kevin Hambrick. He’s been a Fort Wayne music staple for the better part of the 21st century, […]