http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/ en First Media Communications, Inc. Copyright 2010 2010-03-14T00:16:24+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/tori_amos/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/tori_amos/#When:00:16:24Z The world had heard nothing quite like Tori Amos when she emerged as a solo artist with Little Earthquakes in 1992. Her music was introspective and adventurous, jagged but still melodic, and drawn from a cavernous range of influences that included her own Cherokee heritage, the Christian teachings of her childhood (her father is a minister), free jazz and classic rock. She reminded many of a cross between Joni Mitchell and Kate Bush, but at the same time seemed like a completely independent, and even iconoclastic artist. It's a path that Myra Ellen Amos, born in North Carolina and raised in Maryland, has been exploring since childhood, when she was a piano prodigy who started taking classes at the prestigious Peabody Institute in Baltimore when she was just five years old. By age thirteen she was playing clubs in Maryland… 2010-03-14T00:16:24+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/susanna_hoffs/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/susanna_hoffs/#When:00:03:42Z True rock nerds know all about Ming Tea, the fictional band that made its debut in the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The group faded into pop culture obscurity faster than you can say Spinal Tap, but it did lay the groundwork for "members" Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs (she of the Bangles) to join forces for Under the Covers, Vol. 1, which, as the title indicates, is a collection of '60s covers that includes well-known songs by Neil Young, the Who, the Bee Gees and Bob Dylan as well as obscurities from the Fairport Convention, the Left Banke, Love and the Marmalade. If Austin Powers were around to review it, he'd likely tell you it's "positively shagadelic." Q: Not to get too "Behind the Music," but what ever happened to Ming Tea? Sweet: There was a brief moment where it… 2010-03-14T00:03:42+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/story_of_the_year/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/story_of_the_year/#When:23:59:54Z Thanks to its debut album, Page Avenue, Story of the Year has a story to tell. The St. Louis quintet, which formed as Big Blue Monkey, sold nearly a million copies of that disc, which launched modern rock radio hits such as "Anthem of Our Dying Day," "Sidewalks" and "Until the Day I Die." The success followed a dramatic stylistic change for the band. Big Blue Monkey was a heavier, guttural outfit, sometimes compared to the Deftones. But the name change also ushered in a still hard but also more melody-conscious sound, with more hooks and a greater range of dynamics. It caught the ear of Goldfinger's John Feldmann, who took the band under his wing, introduced it to Maverick Records, and produced Page Avenue. Joining a band community that included the likes of Thrice, Thursday and the Used, Story of the… 2010-03-13T23:59:54+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/sonny_landreth/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/sonny_landreth/#When:23:53:28Z You can feel the sweaty, sensual Louisiana heat rising from slide-guitar virtuoso Sonny Landreth's first live album, Grant Street. It was recorded over two hot nights at the Grant Street Dancehall, a legendary Lafayette, Louisiana, honky-tonk that Landreth has called home for the better part of two decades. The 11-song snapshot captures Landreth at his swampy, electric best, leading longtime sidemen David Ranson (bass) and Kenneth Blevins (drums) through a magical set of pure New Orleans barroom bliss. A Mississippi native who moved to Louisiana as a child, Landreth grew up listening to rock, blues, zydeco, R&B, funk, jazz and Cajun music. He blends all of those styles here, putting a steamy, contemporary spin on the traditional New Orleans musical gumbo. Grant Street opens with a wild, uptempo… 2010-03-13T23:53:28+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/sondre_lerche/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/sondre_lerche/#When:23:49:43Z Randy Newman once described his music, half-jokingly, as "a branch of Homo Sapiens that didn't become Homo Sapiens. Homo Erectus. It just died out." This quote came to mind when I first heard Sondre Lerche (pronounced SAWN-der LAIR-kay). On his second album, the twenty-one-year old Norwegian seems to be retracing the footsteps of Paddy McAloon and Roddy Frame. If you don't recognize those names, it's because they were Homo Erecti of the '80s, leaders of UK pop bands Prefab Sprout and Aztec Camera, respectively. Both were fond of mixing jazzy pop and a university student's high-minded aesthetic into a refined style that tended to divide listeners into love/hate camps. Lerche seems especially smitten with McAloon, in that he's not afraid of four-syllable words, diminished chords, changing time signatures and 0-90 mph dynamics. He even does those interesting phrases where he'll… 2010-03-13T23:49:43+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/rob_thomas/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/rob_thomas/#When:23:45:26Z Rob Thomas is a band guy who goes to great lengths to portray himself as just another member of Matchbox Twenty. As the frontman, however, it's hard to avoid being set apart -- especially with the success he's experienced when he has worked outside of the band. Co-writing and singing the Grammy-winning smash "Smooth" for Santana in 1999 made Thomas, who's also written for Mick Jagger and Marc Anthony and dueted with Willie Nelson, a first among equals in his band, and a star in his own right. The latter was particularly confirmed when his first solo album, Something to Be, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in its first week of release. Thomas' trip started overseas. He was a Valentine's Day baby born on a military base in Germany where his father was stationed. Thomas' parents divorced when… 2010-03-13T23:45:26+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/prince/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/prince/#When:23:38:45Z 1999 was a very good year for Prince, (who at the turn preferred to be called The Artist), and not just because he penned the ultimate millennial party anthem. No, the reason had more to do with the release of Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, an album that contains some of The Artist's best work. It features collaborations with the likes of Ani Di Franco, Maceo Parker, Sheryl Crow, Public Enemy's Chuck D, R&B bass legend Larry Graham, and No Doubt's Gwen Stefani. Justifiably proud of the multi-artist collaboration, the forty-something funkster even devoted considerable time to promoting the album via interviews in which he expressed himself with typical candor. The topics included major record label practices ("I have disdain for companies that take your money and don't give you ownership of your own work"); artistic integrity ("Don't sell out. Money is only paper and… 2010-03-13T23:38:45+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/peter_frampton/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/peter_frampton/#When:23:28:26Z Peter Frampton likes to joke that "there's still life in the old dog yet," and that certainly is true. His latest album, Fingerprints, takes listeners to a place they've never really been before with this iconic pop vocalist -- into instrumental territory. Joined by members of the Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam, the Shadows, and Gov't Mule, Frampton takes on fourteen tracks sans vocals, including a strong cover of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun." His hair may be considerably shorter now than it was in his halcyon heyday as rock's golden boy in the 1970s, but Frampton is still long on six-stringed talent that most definitely 'comes alive' whenever he picks up his guitar. Q: Why an instrumental album? Peter Frampton: Because I could, and it's been way too long with not doing one. I've always been a little nervous about doing it even… 2010-03-13T23:28:26+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/nelly_furtado/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/nelly_furtado/#When:23:26:35Z Her first album had us saying "Whoa, Nelly!," but her latest release, Loose, has us just saying...Whoa! After two albums of polished pop, multi-platinum Canadian singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado decided to explore the hip-hop sound, working in Miami with producer Timbaland and charting a course closer to her collaboration with Missy Elliott on the hit remix of "Get UR Freak On" than to Furtado's previous hits like "I'm Like a Bird." The change has paid off, though; "Promiscuous," the first single from Loose, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, while the album debuted in the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. Whoa, indeed. Q: What sent you in a hip-hop direction for Loose? Nelly Furtado: Basically it was me just kind of rediscovering my sound again. The seed was planted almost two years ago when I first went into… 2010-03-13T23:26:35+00:00 http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/neko_case/ http://www.first-media.com/index.php/archive/neko_case/#When:23:20:00Z Is she an American or a Canadian? A country singer or a punk with pop-star pipes? A red-headed, indie-rock sex symbol or the reclusive Marlene Dietrich of the post-punk world café?   It doesn't matter, really. It's better to let Neko Case just be Neko Case -- a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enimga, to borrow a phrase from Winston Chuchill. Mysteriousness is a lost art in the modern popular culture, where the media hunts artists as celebrity prey, feeding them to us until we are gourged and fat and can stomach them no more.   Case has the voice and the looks to be a pop princess. Thankfully, this priestess is aiming for higher ground. Her latest album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, is a modern fable, an epic, 12-song tone poem that looks for beauty and love… 2010-03-13T23:20:00+00:00