Billy Bragg has been churning out poignant, folk-inflected anthems for almost thirty years. What better way to celebrate Labor Day than with a look back on a career spent writing songs for the working class? more ›

British boy wonder/musical polyglot Jamie T makes his first trip to Seattle to play the latest incarnation of John in the Morning at Night, coming up this Saturday at the Croc. On his debut full-length Panic Prevention, the young Mr. T. makes veritable sound collages, amalgams of rock, reggae, punk, soul, rap, heavy cockney accents, and assorted audio clips. That's exactly why he gets comparisons that run the gamut from a baby Bob Dylan to a "one-man Arctic Monkey" to "the bastard lovechild of Billy Bragg and Mike Skinner doing his best Joe Strummer impression" (eminently choice quotes care of Wikipedia). When we asked Jamie how he would characterize his sound, he cheekily referred to a bandmate's description: "My friend Ben who plays drums in the Pacemakers [his backing band] describes it best--well, it's the only way I like to describe it--like liquid shit being poured into your ear." Delightful. more ›

Rob Gordon once said, "The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules." more ›