Thursday It’s almost guaranteed that if you show up to the Mad River Brewery Tap Room during the evening, you’ll recognize someone you know either at the bar or out under a heater checking out the live music. This will be true tonight but you’ll doubly recognize MRB employees taking a break from serving you […]
Andy Powell
Andy Powell is a congenital music lover and hosts The Album of the Week Show on KWPT 100.3 FM Tuesdays at 6 p.m.
Posted inMusic
Looking Back to Look Forward
Nostalgia has been floating around like a faint mist lately, not quite as thick as a fog, but I’ve walked through bits of it unexpectedly this past week. I think it all began with a chat with my old friend Monica, who’s been involved in the local music scene longer than I’ve been a musician. […]
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The Turkey Playlist
Smack dab in the middle of Halloween and Christmahanakwanzaa, Thanksgiving always seems more of an autumn holiday than a winter one for me. Yes, I know winter doesn’t actually start for another month but we’d be forgiven for forgetting that given our recent weather. So with this seeming transition between the seasons, I began to […]
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It’s Getting Darker
Pessimism had a good year in 2016. With an unreal election finally behind us, one that throve on negativity and peddled as fact the idea that we were all living in utter squalor and shame, few of us would dare call 2016 The Best Year Ever. On the music front, we’ve lost some amazing artists […]
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On the Road Again
While I’m never fully clear what the “music industry” is comprised of, any professional musician will tell you things have changed on the business end of their profession. The “higher up” one is on the professional music ladder, the more pronounced these changes have been. Decades ago, before there were billions of bands, record labels […]
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Four More Years
It sounds strange to even say this, but by the time some of you read this column, this piece of shit election season might already be over. So, my future reader, I hope that America is either already great again or that we have woken up and realized that we are, in fact, not descended […]
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Long Halloweekend
Although Halloween falls on a Monday this year — much to the children’s dismay — it seems everyone will go ahead and consider Friday, Saturday and maybe Sunday Halloween or at least a pre-party. I expect the children will still be honoring this high-fructose holiday on Monday but adults who like costumes have many shows […]
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The Trip
Some of my luckier friends informed me how awesome this recent Desert Trip Festival was down in the hotlands of California. They shared because they know I’m a music fan and this festival had some of my all time favorites (Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, The Rolling Stones, The Who and Roger Waters) but […]
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Where the Grass is Always Bluer
A couple of weekends ago I got an unexpected call from my old high school friend Akshay, a man of many of talents. A Harvard-trained dental surgeon, he is also one of the more skilled musicians I’ve met. He’s classically trained, and is as comfortable playing jazz piano as he is on rock guitar. I’ll […]
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Vote, Dammit
In the event you have been dead for the past year, there is an election coming up next month. We’re the most No. 1 country on the goddamn planet but we need to be made great again (go figure). To make America great again — again — we have to vote. And to get many […]
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Blue Steel
This past weekend I had the pleasure to see and hear from the Blue Dragon Steel Band while up in Blue Lake. Comprised of students from Blue Lake and Trinidad, the kids not only learn how to play the steel pans in school, but get to gig around town once in a while. Some of […]
Posted inMusic
If It Ain’t Broke
While I spend a few hours on Sundays putting together these very insightful, informative and professionally written columns, I take some time to listen to some of the artists who are playing during the upcoming week and familiarize myself with the ones I’m not, well, familiar with. In chatting with a former music writer for […]