Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham – Moments from This Theater (1999) purchase this album Spring, 1999: I’m at Slim’s, in San Francisco, making a rare visit to the city in…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Tommy Keene – Ten Years After (1996)purchase this album Power pop: It’s a genre close to my heart, and yet one not often discussed here. This is mostly because, as…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Scott Stapp – The Great Divide (2005)purchase this album Fight Song (download)You Will Soar (download)
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
Okay, I’m a bad music blogger. No update since November?? Awful. I’m here to make up for that today, with not one, not two, but three Lost in the 80s…
Jeff Giles
13 Min Read
Last week’s installment in our Hall & Oates Guide got big love from Stereogum and Entertainment Weekly, among others, forcing me to further question my belief that the blogosphere is…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Dan Chaon – You Remind Me Of Me (2005)purchase this book The baby’s large eyes settled on him, and though this had been one of his happiest nights in his…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
‘Tis the season for downloading! Even though I don’t really care about Christmas per se, and fully sympathize with the pain Christmas music causes most people, I have a perverse…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
John Mayer Trio – Try! (2005) purchase this album The name “John Mayer” has become synonymous with the sort of lazy, disingenuously sensitive pop that female college freshmen love and…
Jeff Giles
8 Min Read
The Guide subjects here fall into roughly three camps, I think: Artists who I periodically enjoy and think are interesting; artists who I think are important in some way; and…
Jeff Giles
3 Min Read
Greetings, friends, and welcome back from what I hope was a deeply enjoyable, tryptophan-enhanced food coma. As I mentioned previously, the Jefitos celebrate Thanksgetting — it’s the day after Thanksgiving…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
There was a discussion over at Silence Is a Rhythm (scroll down about half a page) about the recent Human League reissues and how EMI have done an okay job…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
I realize that many of you think I sit around listening to Toto and Big Country all day, but it ain’t so. Well, not that I don’t listen to those…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Get your turkey on, bitches! For a variety of reasons I shan’t explain, me and mine actually celebrate the day after Thanksgiving — it’s called Thanksgetting, and it’s sweeping the…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Great Big Sea – The Hard and the Easy (2005)purchase this album Given that Great Big Sea’s music is divided between modern pop-folk and traditional songs from their native Newfoundland,…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Fatlip – The Loneliest Punk (2005)purchase this album I talked a couple of weeks ago about how eagerly I’ve been anticipating this album since hearing “What’s Up Fatlip?” waaaaaaaaayyy back…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Ralston – Carwreck Conversations (2004)purchase this album This is a debut record? I confess, I’d never heard of Ralston (nee Bowles) prior to him e-mailing me and asking me to…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Chris Whitley, 1960-2005 Read this moving tribute from Radio Free Newport. Go back and read the Whitley Guide. Buy some or all of his albums. Go gently into those soft…
Jeff Giles
12 Min Read
Okay, jefitoblog faithful…you’ve stuck with me through Toto and Big Country. Can you handle an in-depth look at Norway’s most successful pop export? I’m sure many of you think I’ve…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
My friends, I have been remiss: I received an e-mail a few weeks ago from John Reineck, of the band Soft, asking me to give the band’s new single “Higher”…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Years before Cowboy Troy fused rap and country to create “Hick Hop”, Rhode Island outfit Rubber Rodeo, dressed in fringe jackets, cowboy boots and bolo ties, added the punk aesthetic…
John C. Hughes
1 Min Read
Wrapped in taffeta and camp while sporting a foot-high blonde beehive, Mari Wilson (not the Supreme) stepped out of the mid-sixties and straight into the new wave movement with her…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Enya – Amarantine (2005)purchase this album Hey, what do you know? This sounds like Enya. Oh, right, the files: “Less Than A Pearl” (download) and “Sumiregusa” (download).
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Despite recent appearances to the contrary, the ongoing Gross-Off series has not been abandoned here at jefitoblog; it’s just that between getting caught up on music reviews and changing poopy…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Cyndi Lauper – The Body Acoustic (2005)purchase this album Fifteen years ago, if you had told me that the words “Cyndi Lauper” and “critical renaissance” would apply to each other,…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Les Paul & Friends – American Made World Played (2005)purchase this album The AMG compares this album to Sinatra’s Duets, and that’s fair. All the ingredients are basically the same:…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
Madonna – Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005)purchase this album As with the Kate Bush record from last week, I feel the need to start things off with an open,…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Bettye LaVette – I’ve Got My Own Hell to Raise (2005)purchase this album You know, I could have sworn my man Carl over at Cahl’s Jukebox had written a review…
Jeff Giles
2 Min Read
I once used this space to make some rather unkind remarks about the collected works of Damn Yankees, as well as the overall existence of Tommy Shaw. Judging from the…
Jeff Giles
1 Min Read
Josh Rouse – Bedroom Classics, Vol. 2 (2005)purchase this album I’ll be honest — I hated Rouse’s critically lauded debut, 1998’s Dressed Up Like Nebraska. But every time he releases…
John C. Hughes
2 Min Read
Straight outta Beaver Falls, PA, came Dominic Ierace, playing in local combos until he and his band The Jaggerz hit number two in the “Ëœ70s with “The Rapper”. After The…