Matthew Keefer's Blog: Music Ravings by Matthew Keefer, page 7

Erelli Mixes a Good “Mixtape” For Us

Mark Erelli – Mixtape  Self-Released -out Jan. 26 4 / 5   MA-based folkie Mark Erelli first came to our attention with his 2008 album of political discontent Delivered. It is, in short, a brilliant and beautiful album, and we’ve been following Erelli since. Mixtape is his new covers album pulled from thirteen years of performances at Cambridge, MA’s Club Passim spanning songs from The Grateful Dead to Neko Case and Arcade Fire. While we don’t often review covers albums, Mixtape is a welcome r...

Typhoon Offers Ambition in “Offerings”

Typhoon – Offerings Roll Call Records -out Jan. 12 3.5 / 5   We’ve thought greatly about this double-album fresh from Portland, OR’s Typhoon. There is one word that circles about our head like a persistent muse: Ambitious. There is no doubt here that Offerings, the third full-length studio offering (and the band’s first double-album) is the most ambitious album we’ve reviewed in our ten years of reviewing. This is exactly what we wanted to see from Typhoon, fresh off their brilliant White Lig...

7-Inches for Planned Parenthood. Support.

Various Artists – 7″ for Planned Parenthood  A Dizzying Array of Artists -out now digitally, Nov. 17 for vinyl box set Can we state how important this is / 5 ?   First things first: 100% of the proceeds of sales go to Planned Parenthood. If you’re not aware of what Planned Parenthood is, they’re the most important provider of sexual health care in the US. They serve 2.4 million people a year, many and many of them in difficult financial situations (ie broke and working at Wal-Mart); and it’s...

Book Signings in October!

Wait, book signings you say? What is he talking about?   This:   Coming to Amazon on Nov. 14th (at this link) will be the second volume of my short stories. Ebook format.   And now, the kicker: paperbacks are only available at signings. Such as these card shops in RI/MA:   Scholar’s Games: Friday, Oct. 20th, 5p-9p 244 Liberty St., Brockton, MA 02301 (774) 627-7748 (Located in the right-most building.)   Game King: Saturday, Oct. 21, Hours TBA Come to Game King’s 5th Anniversary! There will be...

The Folk Fest ’17: A Sunday Stroll

Now we’re wrapping up our Newport Folk Festival coverage with the final day of a ridiculously great weekend… and with our favorite #1 Top of the Pops discovery of the weekend. But first, the soulful and spiritual stylings of Kim and Reggie Harris. Thankfully we decided to get out of the sun and sit down for the start of our day (we’re not lazy! Just extra restful) and caught this wife and husband duo in the Museum Stage. To be perfectly honest here… we absolutely enjoyed ourselves at their se...

The Folk Fest ’17: A Saturday Saunter

Hello, and welcome back our much-delayed coverage of the Newport Folk Fest ’17! Thanks much for coming back, and we hope y’all appreciate our mid-way point on these festivities. We’ll spoil a little bit and say one of our favorite discoveries was today. So then, a quick starter in the form of Mt. Joy. Mt. Joy is Philly five-piece that is your fairly typical indie rock group. Their music came off very… chill, we guess? Not bad, a good way to start, but we didn’t feel any need to follow up furt...

Newport Folk Festival ’17: A Friday Look

Welcome back. Halfly to you, our readers, and halfly (not a word, actually) to us. It’s been too long! Oh how we’ve missed you! How work has plummeted us to the depths of Moria. Forgive us the Lord of the Rings reference, it is wholly inappropriate to a three day music festival of grandeur and great indie heights. Perhaps we’ll get to that shortly. We do have to be honest: our favorite years were ’15 and ’16, absolutely amazing years. But the Newport Folk Festival really is the Jewel of the S...

Are You Going to the Newport Jazz Festival?

We just caught the Newport Folk Fest, the musical jewel of the summer… other than its older and meaner brother the Newport Jazz Fest. Why should you head over to the Newport Jazz Fest? Because Bela Fleck and the Most Amazing Living Bassist (ie Victor Wooten) are headlining Friday. Because Rhiannon Giddens, who played one of the best sets at the Folk Fest has a double-header with the always excellent Trombone Shorty. (Giddens fits in incredibly well with the power of her jazz voice, too.) Beca...

…And Now For Something Completely Different

Incredible illustration by Allie Briggs: www.alliebriggs.com We have our second Kickstarter up, this time for The Keeper of Dreams Volume II. It’s a fairly reasonable price, and has our favorite story in it. (We’ll let you guess which one.) (Actually, it’s mentioned on the Kickstarter – so go check it out!)   Here’s the clickable link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/... We hope y’all enjoy! It’s going to be an amazing book, and that’s not just our s...

RG Lowe Gets Down in Boston

Last we’d interviewed Balmorhea fountainhead RG Lowe, he’d given us a heads-up on the band he was touring with. And rightly so. But we’ll get to that in a second. Nellie Fitzgerald (whose FaceBook page can be found here) was the second in O’Brien’s lineup in Boston. She followed a mostly covers section by Dan Barracuda (who was pretty good! Though we didn’t really dig his original, “Something Crazy”). Fitzgerald herself, right here: … has a voice. A good voice. We liked the bit of funkiness t...