Reviews 
True Widow – s/t
True Widow – s/t (Release Date: Nov. 11, 2008, End Sounds) By Matthew Ralph I have a confession to make. When I first heard about this band I mistook them for a spin-off of Slowdive when in actuality they are a spin-off of Slowride. I lived with this illusion up until about the time I […]
TBN-a-thon
By Matthew Ralph I don’t own a TV so I tend to mostly only read and overhear people at work talking about “Dancing With the Stars,” “American Idol” and countless other mindless programs. This being the case, I was pretty excited when I found out that the Sarcastic Lutheran, Nadia Bolz-Weber, had an entire book about […]
Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power and the Amorphous Strums
Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power and the Amorphous Strums – Dark Developments (Release Date: Oct. 28, 2008, Orange Twin) By Matthew Ralph Don’t let the too-long-to-fit-on-your-iPod-screen title of this project scare or fool you. Like the lengthy list of co-conspirators Vic Chesnutt has previously lined up in his prolific music career, Dark Developments is a Chesnutt-centered […]
Johnny Cash was and still is America
By Matthew Ralph “Mostly he was obviously against the system.” Those are the words former San Quentin prisoner turned music legend Merle Haggard uses to sum up Johnny Cash in a new documentary that traces the Man In Black’s distinct influence on American culture, music, politics and religion during a remarkable music career and life. […]
Article: Radically ordinary
By Matthew Ralph Unforgiving, homophobic, fear-mongering, intolerent, consumerism, bigotry, preachy, anti-Semitic and paternalistic are are all words associated, too often accurately so, with Christianity in North America. But they are words that have little to do with the Jewish carpenter who 2,000 years ago urged followers, above all else, to love God and love their […]
The Minor White – Old Theatrics
The Minor White– “Old Theatrics” (Prairie Queen Records – Oct. 21, 2008) By Matthew Ralph Thanks to The Office and more recently the vice presidential candidacy of Joe Biden, Scranton, Penn., has developed a national reputation for being a blue-collar town town with a quirky sense of humor. The Minor White, a band with ties […]
Damien Jurado – Caught In the Trees
Damien Jurado – Caught In The Trees (Sept. 9, Secretly Canadian) By Matthew Ralph Consistency. That’s the first word that comes to mind when considering Damien Jurado’s output as a formal recording artist in the last decade. From the beginning notes of his first full-length in 1997 to the final heartbreaking stanza of his most […]
Review: Shine A Light
The Rolling Stones – Shine A Light: Original Soundtrack By Dan MacIntosh The Rolling Stones are in a unique position: They don’t need to prove their greatness any longer, yet they also don’t want to live out the rest of their musical days counting on their laurels. Shine a Light is the soundtrack to Martin […]