“Summer’s coming and I’d like a revue,” sings Trey Anastasio in the first chorus of the first song of the first solo album of the rest of his life. The request stays airborne above a musical undercurrent propelled by rhythms…

In the past 12 months, Duncan Sheik has made music in London and New York studios, in a Cuban music hall, on a stage in Albania, and in Bill Frisell’s living room. Yet by late January, the songwriter was back home in…

Winding up a string of tour dates a few months ago, John Mayer explained to an Athens, GA audience that they were in for a special night. The tall songwriter behind the breezy single “No Such Thing” said that on…

Power pop is less about innovation than a belief that you can express some universal emotions in a glorious noise just by mastering some basics, no matter who or where you are, or even what year it is. It’s about setting…

Real-time review of Disc 5 of the Super Deluxe version of the Achtung, Baby reissue (related: the review of the Kindergarten disc). Ready … set …LADY WITH THE SPINNING HEADThis is not a random choice for the opening track. As Edge has noted, this…

Achtung, y’all! In what may be some extended coverage of the reissue of U2’s Achtung, Baby, let’s start with the one audio disc in the Super Deluxe set that is 100% totally unheard by fans until now. This “Kindergarten” or “Baby” disc…

Was buying this box set a bad idea? I think anyone who just spent $200 on a set of six Grateful Dead concerts from 1990 would ask the same thing as they open up the package. I’m typically all about…

With a six-show box set, the only responsible thing to do is to build a personal compilation of favorite tracks. Where the first night of the Spring 1990 box (3/16/90 Landover review) made it hard to leave much out of…

The Dead played roughly 2,300 shows from the time they started  down that golden road to unlimited devotion through 1995, and devotees recorded all but maybe a couple hundred in one form or another. So it’s unlikely — highly unlikely…

We’re over the hump in the six-show Spring 1990 box as the caravan survives customs and rolls into New York’s capital. After the collection’s second “Hell In A Bucket” opener (better than the first), 3/26/90 proceeds to a gangly but…