It’s never easy for a band to follow up a hugely successful album, but The Cribs had a doubly tough task after the overwhelming response to 2009’s Ignore the Ignorant, which was the group’s first Top 10 U.K. hit, outselling 11 of the 13 Beatles reissues that were released the same week. At least part of Ignorant’s success was attributable to the presence of former Smiths guitarist Johnny M...  

Eight years ago, guitarist/vocalist Justin Ringle relocated from his native Idaho to Portland, Ore., and very quickly shifted his stylistic allegiance from the aggressive Rock he had played at home to the gentler Folk sound that pervades the Northwest scene. Ringle formed Horse Feathers to pursue his newfound acoustic passion and garnered rabid fans and critical acclaim with his first three albums...  

 Although Natural Child coalesced back in 2009, they sound like they’ve been around forever. Almost stereotypically young, the Nashville trio’s influences date to their parents’ record collections and that sense of musical classicism is infused with an appropriate dose of hormonal rage and rebellion.   

People about to change the world rarely look like people about to change the world. Take Gold Shoes — central casting didn’t assemble a new millennium Monkees to storm the music world with calculated precision. Gold Shoes is comprised of oddly yet perfectly meshed parts.   

In a relatively short time, Joshua Steele has become something of a Dance Pop/Dubstep poster boy in his native England and is well on his way to similar status in the U.S. The renowned DJ, producer and co-founder of Circus Records, better known by his flashier marquee name Flux Pavilion, came to prominence last year with his big UK hit “Bass Cannon."  

Eight years ago, guitarist/vocalist Justin Ringle relocated from his native Idaho to Portland, Ore., and very quickly shifted his stylistic allegiance from the aggressive Rock he had played at home to a gentler Folk sound. He formed Horse Feathers to pursue his newfound acoustic passion and garnered rabid fans and critical acclaim, with reviewers consistently pointing out the wonderful tension between the dark poignancy of Ringle’s lyrics and the expansive beauty of the music that surrounds them.  

Between bodies, equipment and ephemera, we’re packed tightly into The Ready Stance’s rehearsal space, possibly a converted coal cellar in the basement of guitarist/vocalist Wes Pence’s beautiful old Newport home.  

Long before Jack and Meg White made it fashionable, Scott Lucas and Joe Daniels made serious waves as Indie Rock duo Local H. Anything’s possible at a Local H show; tickets for their 2007 morning gig at Cellular Field were available only by finding Lucas on the street and addressing him, “Attention all planets of the Solar Federation, we have assumed control.” The countdown is on.  

Loudon Wainwright III could very easily have slid into the where-are-they-now realm of celebrity obscurity if he had allowed himself to be swallowed up by the one-hit wonderment of “Dead Skunk” in 1972. Although most people at the time only knew him for that ubiquitous single, Wainwright was confident that he had plenty of o...  

Since her 1994 indie debut, The Honesty Room, Dar Williams has attracted a diverse and pathologically loyal fan base with her quirkily hybridized Folk/Pop ministrations. Like an elegant gene splice of Shawn Colvin and Loudon Wainwright III, Williams can easily triangulate the emotional distance between breezy humor, somber reflection and crystalline heartbreak, on subjects as intimate as family an...