Category: Roots

Alternative Jangle Pop Modern Rock New Music Roots
January 30, 2023

An Odd Little EP from Johnossi

While looking through some new music suggestions on Spotify, up popped the Swedish band Johnossi. Their music has a kind of late 80s/90s retro sound with elements of 80s roots and 90s alternative and a splash of indie rock. I was immediately reminded of some 90s Toronto bands like Lowest of the Low, Blue Rodeo (though less twangy), and Barenaked Ladies. But also, 80s jangle […]

Dance Music Latin New Music Reggae Roots surf
February 9, 2022

Los Bitchos Sure Know How to Party

I like a lot of unusual music styles. If music is the spice of life, I like my life as hot as extra hot chicken wings. (No, I won’t say Buffalo Wings. That’s not what we say here in Buffalo.) The weirder and more unique, the better. Most of the time, however, it’s much easier to describe music by tossing it into a category that […]

80s-music Alt folk Dance Music Indie New Music Roots soul
January 4, 2022

Who Knows Where the Time Goes?

In 1967, Sandy Denny, then with the band The Strawbs, asked the question “Who Knows Where the Time Goes? ” Certainly not me. Just in the last year, I recovered from brain surgery and retired from the computer tech world. I then started the podcast “Tunes Past to Present”, with the working title of “New Music for Old Farts.” That project was abandoned a few […]

80s-music 90s Americana Indie New Music Punk Roots
August 25, 2021

The Cruzados Are Anything but Automatic

Back in the mid 1980s, a group of artists mixed new wave and punk with country, blues, and folk styles to create a genre called roots rock revival. For a short while, 80s style roots rock revival was a fixture on college and alternative charts. Groups like The Beat Farmers, The Long Ryders, The Blasters, Los Lobos, and Lone Justice updated American music to fit […]

Alt folk Americana Concert Country Indie Radiohead rock-music Roots
August 10, 2021

Concert Review – Amethyst Kiah

Last week, August 2, 2021 to be precise, I had the opportunity to see Amethyst Kiah in concert at the Chautauqua Institute. Once of the great things about Chautauqua, is the opportunity to see bands one might not think to go see otherwise. Due to COVID, the crowd was much smaller than it should have been but that added to the intimacy of the show. […]

Alternative Country Dance Music Indie New Music Roots Southern Rock
July 13, 2021

New Songs (for Me At Least) The Week of July 11, 2021

We are back into a cycle of singles again. Throughout May and into June we saw one great (or not so great) album after another bounding out onto the new music scene. These albums cut across genres, sometimes multiple genres, and included new and old artists. Whew. Since then, new album releases have slowed down to a less frenetic pace. Singles releases, on the other […]

Alternative Celtic New Music Punk Roots
April 30, 2021

Turn Up That Dial! It’s More Dropkick Murphys

Today saw the release of the new album from the celt punk band, The Dropkick Murphys. Formed in Boston in the wake of the celt punk explosion following the first Pogues albums, the Dropkick Murphys have a bit of The Clash in them but still follow time honored celt punk traditions. Unlike other celt punk bands, such as Black 47, the Dropkick Murphys have a […]