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I haven’t had much contact with my famous nephew since The Black Keys conquered the world. Just the occasional text about someone I should check out, like Michael Kiwanuka or Bombino. So, like [...]

Over the past year, I pulled all my music gear out of cold storage and started playing in bars again. Which wasn’t as difficult as it could’ve been, since I only took a two-year hiatus. But my [...]

Back in this post, we featured a carefully selected playlist of songs best suited for Sunday mornings, when godless ingrates like me are busy reading the Times and sipping artisinal coffee. Now [...]

I’m a bit of a “completist,” but only with a few select artists. For example, I don’t need all 1,000 songs that Lightnin’ Hopkins recorded throughout his career. Just give me a little bit of this [...]

Alright, just one word for you this week: Bombino! Alright, I lied… just a few more words. Special thanks to nephew Dan and our good friend Rick Saunders for turning me on to Omara “Bombino” [...]

They called him the King of the Hillbilly Piano Players. I like to think of Moon Mullican as one of the lost heroes of rock ‘n roll – a vital link between R&B piano pounders like Amos Milburn [...]

 In the last issue of Rolling Stone magazine, I was described as the “blues snob uncle” of The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach. At first, I took great umbrage to this (how’s that [...]

(Listen to Eddie Cochran while you read.) Start with a good mystery. Then throw in some intimate and revealing images from the early years of rock ‘n roll. Therein lies the beauty of “1950s Radio [...]

Psychedelic rock: I know I shouldn’t try to boil down an entire sub-genre of music into a few sentences. But here’s my take on psych rock. First and foremost, it changed my life – starting with [...]

Just picked up a good read about the troubled marriage of rock and the boob tube: “TV a-Go-Go” by Jake Austen (producer of a cable-access children’s dance show that airs in [...]

As we approach the end of 2011, some of you might be looking at various ways to shake things up in the coming year. Maybe take a few dance classes, learn how to cook with a wood-burning stove, [...]

Writing about dead blues guys is a fairly thankless pursuit. I’ll do a post on someone like Pee Wee Crayton and hear crickets. And just when I’m ready to fold up my tent and leave this virtual [...]

Hard to believe, but it’s time for RCR’s 3rd annual Holiday Song Roundup (for those of you who need to catch up, pour yourself a little nog and ride these yule logs: Vol. 1, Vol. 2). I should [...]

Rolling Stone recently came up with another list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” The new list was compiled by “a panel of top guitarists and other experts” – including RCR supporter [...]

Back in the heyday of Cleveland rock radio, this wildman named Murray Saul – sounding a lot like Howard Dean when he blew up his campaign for President – would usher in the weekend with a [...]

(Click here, then read on.) Mongolia… Mexico… Africa… Scandinavia… Rubber City Review travels the globe to bring you amazing and exotic sounds from far-away lands! From Tuvan throat-singing to [...]

Here’s a tasty guitarist I lost track of a few years back. Then when I recently looked into his newer stuff – expecting to hear more variations on the rock-solid blues he recorded in the ‘90s – I [...]

I’ve been at this for more than two years now and this is our first post on gospel music. Bless me, my readers, for I have sinned… I certainly feel sanctified now that I’ve seen “Classic Moments [...]

We’ll kick things off with our own little version of “name that riff”: Mystery Riff John Lennon’s snarling intro to Revolution? Guess again… Blues guitarist Pee Wee Crayton laid down this [...]

RCR checks in with our good friend Gunnar Menzel at iCrates – the Berlin-based online magazine and phone app for vinyl lovers everywhere. T.Q.: We’re big fans of the iCrates online magazine. It’s [...]

Here’s a soundtrack for you multi-taskers out there: MDQ I’m not a Broadway musical kind of guy. I blame it on the gritty, gut-wrenching films I watched as a kid, like Mean Streets and The [...]