Listen to the Lion

Happy Celtic New Year

Click here for an MP3 stream of an incredible version of my latest favorite Van Morrison song by the man himself.

Best Music of 2005

Here's my annual list of best CDs at National Review Online.

First good show of 2006

Back on Sat., Jan. 14, I got to see two of my favorite bluegrass bands - the Del McCoury Band and King Wilkie - perform in Dayton.

King Wilkie opened and were great as usual, continuing in their recent direction of mixing traditional and original bluegrass with other orginal material (like on this EP and on these tracks) that's influenced by sounds like those from Gillian Welch and Neil Young. Also an awesome cover of Springsteen's "Nebraska."

It was a weird, sound-swallowing hall and the sound guy acted like he didn't have much experience with acoustic music, but KW got a better-than-good reception for an opening act.

The Del McCoury Band was next, and they were typically great, though not as great as they can be. As mentioned in this space earlier, their bassist Mike Bub left the band last year, leaving a gaping hole in their sound that isn't quite filled by the new bassist, Alan Bartram. Nothing against Bartram, who had just joined the group when I saw them at the IBMA convention last Fall, but his right-hand work doesn't come close to the drive that Bub's has, but very few do.

Here's a pic I snapped of King Wilkie (with Ted and Jake hidden) from IBMA 2004.

Nice Van Morrison cover

A nifty version of the classic Van track "Sweet Thing" (from the greatest album ever recorded by anyone) by an Austin band called the Wierd Weeds is available to listen to here.