CD Reviews

Dead Rock West are well established as one of the most creative of LA’s modern country bands, with four albums to date that include a great collection of Everly Brothers songs and other discs that make the most of the talents of singer/ songwriters Cindy Wasserman and Frank Lee Drennan. The band is able to […]

Northern California’s Gwyneth Moreland is a singer/songwriter who played as a teen in her brother’s bluegrass/folk band, and returned to the Mendocino area after college to start writing and recording her own Americana songs. She released a CD in 2014, Ceilings, Floors, and Open Doors and her follow up is Cider. On hand for the […]

John Batdorf has been playing music professionally for over half a century, and is a soft rock/harmony ballad specialist, releasing many solo albums as well as projects with Michael McLean, James Lee Stanley, and others. Recent projects include 2017’s Next Stop Willoughby. Batdorf is back with Me and My Guitar, a sort of career retrospective; […]

Yale Strom is a maelstrom of intellectual and creative energy. Besides being the Artist in Residence for Jewish Studies at San Diego State, Strom has distinguished himself as the ethnographer who documented the life and music of Eastern Europe’s Jews during the last days of the Soviet Union (1). He is also a composer, author, […]

Ken Lehnig’s last two solo albums have been eclectic projects, including 2016’s Holding a Rose. He writes and sings Americana songs that resonate, often capturing quirky characters with lyrical stories built around them. He has doubled down on this genre with his newest release, Dr. Daniels Miracle Cure and Medicine Show. The 15 originals were […]

It’s been three years since we’ve heard new music from Blue Largo. The wait ended this month with the release of Before the Devil Steals Your Soul. Eric Lieberman and Alicia Aragon have assembled a talent-rich rhythm section from the wealth of Southern Californian artistry and the outcome is stellar. Of the 15 tracks, there […]

Sometimes Julie broke through a few years back with a full-length CD, Head First; the band, featuring powerful vocalist Monica Sorenson, played songs with a classic rock feel. They moved to a harder rocking edge on Bright Side of the Line and are back with a new EP, Breaking, rocking hard as ever. This seven-tune […]

Chris Avetta is a local pop singer/songwriter whose debut album is Shadows. The independent release refers to her sound as indie-folk and forest-pop, and the slickly produced disc boasts eight LA-area studio musicians adding layer upon layer to those provided by the five string and keyboard instruments played by Avetta, who also sings her own […]