I'm going to miss the hell out of this place. I graduate in just a few days, and I wonder if anything will compare to the experiences I've had here. This town, this campus - in all its "fly over" glory...

The somewhat punk-tinged, pop-emo foursome Attention would, as my friend Paul smartly said, easily fit right into MTV's current rotation. That is not to say they would necessarily deserve that mega-level...

The First Prize Killers' new album has a brilliant, friends-playing-for-fun quality that makes it instantly likable. "The Powdery Parade," the band's third release and first full-length album, was put...

Fans of Dar Williams' lovely, warm voice and witty, literate lyrics need not worry. Her seventh record, the infectious, comforting "Beauty of the Rain," might have a distinctly pop feel, but Williams said...

While much of The Sadies' music sounds like it would fit seamlessly into an Ennio Morricone-composed spaghetti western score, don't assume the band's members are die-hard fans of Clint Eastwood flicks....

While Ben Affleck's stylist grappled with whether the white-gold or 18-karat dove peace pin went best with his Oscar attire, members of the celebrity musician crowd have been expressing antiwar sentiment...

John Parish, the consummate sideman, has never been one to bask in the spotlight. "I really don't have any desire to be a star or a front man. That's not really my ambition," said Parish by telephone in...

Ground Zero/The Front A Prince-happy DJ wearing a giant cowboy hat and tight, zebra-print shirt and skintight pants was spinning, and The Front revolved around his retro-fun set. He held a huge brandy...

Although John Doe once fronted one of America's most important, intelligent punk bands, you might know him better from his film career. His comical role as the father of child bride Winona Ryder in the...

The Grammys have never been cool. Although it always seems to try its fuddy-duddy best, the Recording Academy has made more than its share of snubs and outright hilarious flubs. How can we forget when...

At first blush, Tim Easton's voice sounds like a generic bar band lead who worships Bob Dylan's "Nashville Skyline." But when you listen to the entirety of his new album, "Break Your Mother's Heart," you'll...

For me, the most loathsome, manipulative, slimy industry of them all has always been advertising. Between the pesky commercial breaks, I grew up watching Samantha's mean-spirited husband Darren on "Bewitched"...

For all of us bleeding-heart-liberal college students who have been in a blurry haze of depression, frustration and rage for the past few weeks sparked by Sen. Paul Wellstone's death and prolonged by the...

A good friend and fellow music-head once assured me, "Brianna, there's no such thing as 'guilty pleasures.' " This was after I awkwardly confessed how addicted I was to the new Enrique Iglesias record,...

>Scarlet's Walk is comfortingly and frustratingly Tori Amos. She is still effectively translating the swirling melodies in her head into songs that millions of her devoted fans worship and ascribe their...

Last January, Tom Petty, Beck and Courtney Love, among others, went to California's state capitol with the founders of the recently-formed Recording Artists Coalition: Don Henley and Sheryl Crow. They...

I can easily say that I've never been to a play like Galumph Interactive Theater's Seance. I have, however been in theater classes that were quite similar. You see, Seance is what they call an "interactive...

I have been going to concerts since I was a 3-year-old. My dad, a fellow music worshiper and constant concert companion, took me to see my favorite band at the time, Culture Club. I can remember the colors...

Women bopping their heads to the sounds of Bruce Springsteen songs served White Castle hamburgers on silver platters. Balding, middle-aged men in brand-new black leather jackets shuffled in with strollers...

I used to know a guy at work who was sullen and blunt. He had a rusty orange-colored beard and a long ponytail. He used to tell me about the times he almost died and how he used to be homeless. He loved...

You're probably familiar with the Behind the Music my-manager-robbed-me-blind story. A promising young ñ yet naïve ñ musician signs a shady contract on the hood of a car without reading it. Fast...

Lately I've been mulling over this relevant Jimi Hendrix quote: "Blues is a part of America. When music goes too far out and is in danger of becoming a technique, people always come back to basic honesty...

The White Stripes have been given enough adoring praise from pop music critics around the world to make your head explode. Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times, who is in love with the band, writes,...

A few months ago Delia's clothing catalogs (for high school and college- aged girls who like Michelle Branch but don't subscribe to Abercrombie or Gap ideology) featured young girls proudly sneering at...

Be careful with those Dylan comparisons. Not that local rocker-folkster Martin Devaney won't welcome it a bit ("I could do worse," he jokes). Devaney is "watching" himself these days. He's making sure...

Under a spectrum of brightly colored lights, Mason Jennings and his band occupy a stage that looks like a performance space fit for a certain Las Vegas white tiger act. Everyone else in the Eau Claire,...

Beulah is busier than an indie band ever should be. Especially for guys that not only work "regular jobs," but also craft and deliver sparkling, Sunday afternoon pop that rocks with trumpets, flutes and...

  Believe the hype - because it's really happening. Believe those ranting local music columnists. Believe the guy yapping your ear off at the record store. Believe them when they tell you that something...