By Chris Cooper

Beautiful and alarmingly odd, Andrew Bird makes music that ambles pretty far outside description or categorization. “Chamber pop” perhaps? And what the heck is he talking about half the time? How did he find so many things that rhyme with formaldehyde in the song “Fake Palindromes”?

By Chris Cooper

When the bio sheet for a band arrives with the greeting “Dear Pop Revivalists,” I feel a mixture of curiosity and dread. Good pop or bad pop? Classic pop, schlock pop, punk pop (ugh) or what? For Pete’s sake, Beethoven was the “pop” music of his era; so exactly what kind of pop am I reviving here?

By Chris Cooper

It’s not unusual in music circles for one’s sound to be recognizable but the name to be mostly unknown. Such is the case for bluegrass veteran Curly Seckler.

By Chris Cooper

If you didn’t know already, Jamie Cullum is that kid who was on Pay-Per-View last summer. It was a “freeview” concert, I think, during which he ran around like a complete nut on a huge stage, before an equally large crowd, in front of a gigantic English castle somewhere.

Here’s the deal. I’m not going to be “recommending” anything in this installment of “Diversions.” I’m just going to tell a story about Wednesday, Nov.16, 2005 — starting right around noonish.

By Chris Cooper

The G3 tours are a traveling celebration of the virtuoso rock guitarist. Joe Satriani developed the concept of G3 in reaction to his sense of isolation from other artists in his genre.

By Chris Cooper

Let’s just go ahead and say it: terrible title for an album. Thankfully, a lot of the music on the disc is quite good, and even does have some soul, as noted in the press release. This is especially shocking since it came from Nashville, which hasn’t exactly been the epicenter of anything “soulful” for a good long while.

By Chris Cooper

Eric Brace writes damn fine songs. His band Last Train Home plays these songs pretty damn well, too. Heck, Mr. Brace does some great stuff with the songs he didn't write, as well. Bound Away is such a good listen that I've had a bit of trouble finding a way to start the review, so let's just leave it at this: go buy it and enjoy it.

Every now and then a disc arrives that I have absolutely no idea what to do with. Freakwater’s latest, Thinking of You, is without a doubt just such a disc. Considering the fact that they’ve existed in a kind of well respected obscurity since forming in 1989, yet attracted interest from Steve Earle’s record label (which resulted in nothing but a well publicized feud and some harsh words) and that their particular brand of song craft is considered too twangy for most “country” fans and too dark for the rest of the listening public, my guess is that they (Janet Beveridge Bean and Catherine Irwin) thrive on confusing the heck out of people.