Friday, January 17, 2025
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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWSMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Rachel Platten Brings Viewers, and Herself, to Tears

On Monday Night we were treated to a very special performance, and it wasn’t by the Minnesota Vikings as they were dominated by the Los Angeles Rams 27-9.  It was in the cards that the Rams would win as all of LA, and most of the country, was supporting the team due to the devastation that was happening in their hometown via the wildfires. The true joy was what happened prior to the opening kickoff and that was cause by Rachel Platten. 

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MUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

A Benefit Concert Planned in LA

A benefit concert for victims of the ongoing California wildfires has been announced. The show is billed as ‘FireAid’ and will take place on January 30 at the LA Intuit Dome. The show’s exact lineup has yet to be announced. Proceeds for the event will go to a 501(c)(3) with the purpose of “rebuilding infrastructure, supporting displaced families, and advancing fire prevention technologies and strategies to ensure LA is better prepared for fire emergencies,” according to a press release. A significant aspect of the relief efforts includes a $1 million pledge from the Recording Academy and MusiCares.

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MUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

New Look For Jane’s Addiction?

Last September, the band announced the cancellation of its remaining tour dates following an onstage altercation between singer Perry Farrell and Navarro. The band said it “made the difficult decision to take some time away as a group,” therefore forfeiting the rest of the dates of their tour. A short time later, Navarro, along with Perkins and Avery, posted a joint statement to their respective Instagram accounts in which they said the cancelation of the tour is a result of a “continuing pattern of behavior and the mental health difficulties of our singer Perry Farrell.”

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LISTS
Jason Shrum

What to Expect When Expecting New Music

Well, 2024 has come and gone and we saw some amazing music come out of the last 365 days. Now it is on to 2025 and whole new list of tasty tunes is being splattered before our ears. Last year we saw a huge wave of new and established artists releasing a mass of incredible tracks. Will this year be able to hold up to the onslaught of fantastic art we were given in the previous time slot? I am compiling a list of albums that will hit wax, streaming services and the airwaves this next year. This will be an ongoing process- full of constant edits and adds and updates. Here is what I have gathered so far about what to expect when expecting new music in 2025.

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ALBUM REVIEWSFEATUREDLISTS
Jason Shrum

Top 5 Records of the Year

Another year has passed, and we were once again treated to so many great new albums.  I just hope that 2025 presents us with as much music enrichment as these last 365 days.  I am attempting to list my Top 5 records of 2024 and in doing so I have scratched out so many, then rewritten some of those deleted mentions and then re-rewritten the entire list multiple times.  Each time that I have done so I have compiled an original listing once again

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Happy Elke Day! 

As I stood outside The Blue Room, I felt my body battling both the 25-degree weather and the sheer excitement of the show that I was going to see.  Tonight, attached to Jack White’s Third Man Records, the shivering crowd was going to be let in to Elke’s record release party.  Elke was debuting her new project Divine Urge.  It is her sophomore record.  The show was being sponsored by Nashville’s public radio station WNXP and the former “Record of the Month” artist, Meg Elsier, was slated to be the opener.  This was going to be a beautiful culmination of talent, music and like-minded folks gathered to share in the mystical power that live music holds over us.   

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ALBUM REVIEWSB SidesMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Love Courtney 🖤

On March 14th, 1995, my friend Josh Kaye and I grabbed tickets to go see Hole at The Edge in Orlando, Florida.  It was one of the first shows that Courtney Love and her band played after the death of her husband, Kurt Cobain, nearly one year earlier.  This was the closest I could get to seeing Kurt and Nirvana and I was super excited to see the show.  To see Courtney, and no, I don’t think she had anything to do with his death.  I think that conspiracy makes people feel better about the untimely death of our John Lennon. Like, he didn’t leave us, he was taken away. 

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B SidesFEATUREDMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

The Thrill of the Pick!

Record Store Day was created with a nod to “Free Comic Book Day”. Its inspiration came from an independently owned record store ownership meeting in Baltimore. Founded officially by Michael Kurtz, Eric Leven, Amy Dorfman, Carrie Colliton, Brian Poehner, and Don Van Cleave, Record Store Day was established in 2007 in celebration of individual artists. Packed with performances, special appearances, and meet-and-greets, Record Store Day celebrated everything musical while upholding the individuality of each store. 

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B SidesFEATUREDMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Beyoncé Bounced 

“Cowboy Carter” has been considered a reclamation of country music because it highlights Black artists’ contributions to the genre. Many folks had hoped that it would bring even more visibility to country Black artists.  Emmett Price III, dean of Africana studies at Berklee College of Music, said her album was “calling into question not only the historical and cultural roots of country and Western but also how we normalize certain cultural aspects of country culture.”  

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

A Space Disco with The Weird Sisters 

They are the self-described “Dance Commanders” and that aptly chronicles the status of their compilations.  Funk has collided with electronica and slammed danced with jazz and soul with punk-EDM and psychedelia ploughing into the onslaught. Are you getting it yet?  You will just have to listen for yourselves.  In fact, I implore you to dive into the pool. The water is nice, but you cannot see the bottom and if your feet do not touch, you are in the right place. 

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FEATUREDMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

The Beatles Get a Grammy Nod

The Beatles might finally be able to win a “Record of the Year” Grammy. The Fab Four’s latest “new” song, ‘Now and Then,’ was nominated this past Friday for the “Record of the Year” Grammy and will be competing against songs by Beyoncé, Billie Eilish, Chappell Roan, Charli XCX, Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, and Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone.  

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ALBUM REVIEWSFEATURED
Jason Shrum

Melancholy Goes Up To 11 

Since 1978, when The Cure formed, they have always seemed older to me than they really were, but now they are older and the insight that they have ingested is recognizable more than ever.  It took 16 years to make this album because they wanted it to be right.  We know that Robert Smith craves perfection as do all the great artists and he didn’t want to just give the world “something”.  He wanted to give then “everything”, and in this album he showed us his heart.  He cares.  He always has.  However, over the last few years he has lost more than ever and it’s transparent in these eight songs.  

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B SidesFEATURED
Jason Shrum

THANK YOU MR. JONES

With producing credits for legends such as Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, Lesley Gore, and Donna Summer, his impact on contemporary music is legendary. He embarked on a journey that had him starting a life as a touring musician, serving as Dizzy Gillespie’s musical director in the 1950s. Jones went on to arrange songs for Ray Charles, Count Basie, Dinah Washington, and others before incorporating synthesizers into his own practice.  In the 1960s, Jones began work as Mercury Records’ vice president. He concentrated on music for the small and big screen, eventually scoring nearly 40 films and hundreds of TV shows.  When you look at the vast scope of his career, accolades and accomplishments it’s hard to believe that this was done by one person. 

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B SidesFEATURED
Jason Shrum

PARENTAL ADVISORY EXPLICIT CONTENT

However, rather than determining whether albums would be labeled (nineteen record labels had already voluntarily added advisory stickers a month earlier), the Senate hearing would provide a chance to hear all sides. John Denver, for example, spoke about his own experience with censorship when his song “Rocky Mountain High” was thought to be about drugs. (“This was obviously done by people who had never seen or been to the Rocky Mountains,” he told the committee.) Ultimately, the PMRC won, and through a deal with the Recording Industry Association of America, labels were added to albums on November 1, 1985.  

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ALBUM REVIEWSB SidesFEATUREDINTERVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Meg Elsier Raises the Roof 

I brought my niece, Becca, as my plus one guest and didn’t know what to expect when encountering this rising star.  Meg Elsier is just 30 years old- as is my niece- and she is quickly rising up the ladder of stardom in the industry.  Nashville Scene magazine just awarded her the Best Indie/Rock Debut Album by its writers a few days ago.  Meg debuted her record, Spittake, in June. The album deserves any accolades that it gets.  I had been listening to it on my playlist for about a month before I got the news that I would have a face to face with this Berklee School of Music prodigy. 

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ALBUM REVIEWSB SidesMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Songs of a Lost World

The album is titled Songs of a Lost World and the group had already dropped two tracks from the LP on streaming services. So why did it take so long for this record to be produced?  The project has been long discussed by Robert Smith throughout several interviews. When talking to the LA Times in 2019, he put the onus on himself for the delays. “I keep going back over and redoing them, which is silly. At some point, I have to say that’s it. It’s very much on the darker side of the spectrum,” Smith added. “I lost my mother and my father and my brother recently, and obviously it had an effect on me. It’s not relentlessly doom and gloom. It has soundscapes on it, like Disintegration, I suppose. I was trying to create a big palette, a big wash of sound.” From what I have heard on the pair of songs released, he and his mates have done just that.  Meaning, they have captured that classic Cure sound that I was first mesmerized by in high school.   

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ALBUM REVIEWSB SidesFEATURED
Jason Shrum

Catchfire takes you to the ‘Wild Side’

The rattling echo from the burning words and instrumentals stays with the listener even when the song is silenced.  It is now out there in the ethos for others to discover- for that is all that we can do.  We create and place our art in the world for the scavengers to find.  This track is certainly art and I am happy that I got to hear it before most.  This is a band to be on the lookout for. 

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Bourbon and Beyond: Days 3 & 4 

Days One and Two of Bourbon & Beyond were highly organized and very strict when it came to the front gates.  The event was constantly posting on their socials and emailing out rules and regulations for standards that they wanted upheld throughout the long weekend.  You could only bring in chairs if you had a “Chair Pass”, which cost gobs of extra money, and they sold out in 45 minutes.  You could bring in a towel to sit on if your towel met specific requirements as far as size and, get this, thickness.  Water bottles had to be clear, and empty upon arrival, and not have a capacity of over 20ozs.  There were also lists of “Do’s and “Don’ts” that festival runners hammered into your brain repeatedly.  Then came day three. 

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Bourbon & Beyond: Day Two

So now we reside in Day Two of Bourbon & Beyond. Day one nearly killed me as I realized that 10 hours standing in the sun after driving three hours to get here was too long of a day for this 50-year-old. There is nowhere to hide at this festival.  There are tents around the Expo Center, but the tents seem hotter as they are jammed with people and there is no catching a breeze.  I applaud the staff as they have done a great job of handing out free cold waters to people in the pit areas in front of the stage.  These are certainly the danger areas of the festival.  I’ve seen a few people get carried out due to the heat and the medical tents keep a heavy rotation of people getting IV’s.  So, Day Two, I decided I was going to dial it back a bit so that I could go a little heavier the following days.  It’s all about pace, right?! 

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Bourbon & Beyond: Day One

Here I am, in my hotel room, just north of Louisville, Kentucky in Sellersberg, Indiana pondering what I have seen over the last two days.  It’s Bourbon & Beyond and it’s a lot.  According to local news sources and the Bourbon & Beyond website the festival is bringing in $12.5 million dollars in local revenue and over 270,000 concert goers over the four days of music. The venue, which is located at The Highland Fairgrounds at the Kentucky Exposition Center, between the airport and the University of Louisville, is a massive lot of land as you would imagine.  The festival started in 2017 and has grown immensely since its inception.  This year hosts 110 bands/artists and 5 different stages located across the property.  

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Steve Lynch

Childish Gambino in Tampa

I first heard Childish Gambino on the Late Night with Conan O’Brien show singing Heartbeat from his debut album Camp in 2011.  I immediately downloaded Heartbeat and then found Bonfire and Sunrise which are two of my favorite rap songs of all time.   The humor that Gambino has in his lyrics is incredibly unique as he tells you about his background as a BLERD(black nerd) from Georgia who went to NYU and then wrote for 30 Rock under Tina Fey. 

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FEATUREDMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Jon Bon Jovi Saves A Woman In Crisis 

Bon Jovi has worked with vulnerable people through his Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which provides food, affordable housing, job training and social services to people experiencing hunger, poverty and homelessness. Bon Jovi also has had training in speaking to individuals during difficult situations. In February, Bon Jovi was recognized as the MusiCares Person of the Year for his philanthropic efforts.

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Steve Lynch

Here We Go! 

As a wanna be skater and surfer Jane’s songs were the soundtrack of so many skating/surfing videos in the mid to late 80s that they became ingrained in my subconscious. The Hard Rock Hotel in South Florida was the backdrop for this latest adventure. You probably have seen the giant guitar shaped hotel in commercials over the years or while driving on the Florida Turnpike. Looks are deceiving in just how big that casino and property really are. After quickly putting in a losing bet on the Texas A&M game it was time to go in.  

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

Fresh Lemons : Nothing Canned

The Lemonheads are an indie/alternative/punk band, originally from Boston, Massachusetts formed in 1986, and they were playing their two most successful albums tonight. The setlist was It’s A Shame About Ray which was constantly in my cars cassette player my senior year of high school (1992), and Come On Feel The Lemonheads (1996) which featured the single “Into Your Arms”.  

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FEATUREDMUSIC NEWS
Jason Shrum

Oasis is Back, Definitely Maybe

We never saw The Beatles reunite but some current fans find this to be equal to or greater than that reconciliation. And if Fab Four from Liverpool were bigger than Jesus (John Lennon’s words), then how big is this news?! If you don’t recall in 1996, Noel Gallagher “joked” in an MTV interview that Oasis was bigger than The Beatles, but he later denounced his claims saying he was “high” at the time.  

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FEATUREDLIVE REVIEWS
Jason Shrum

The Queen of Noise Rocks The Ryman

There are only a handful of true rockstars left in the world and Joan Jett is certainly one of them.  On Sunday, August 25th, I witnessed that greatness at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee.  Joan Marie Larkin has been doing this rockstar thing for a bit now, and she still has that “It” factor.  She changed her last name to “Jett” when she was 16 because it sounded more like a rockstars name.  She always knew what she was going to do in life. She was born for this.  There were no other options. 

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