Rock
If your tastes run to finely crafted songwriting, then the standout event between Christmas and New Year’s is when Melissa Ferrick and Marshall Crenshaw roll into Club Passim on separate nights.
More than holiday knock-offs, Nick Lowe’s Christmas songs were his strongest batch of originals in awhile.
For those of us who love Christmas music, Aimee Mann and company showed how to do it right: a lot of lovely songs and festive spirits, not a lot of sticky sentiment.
Mr. Airplane Man was beloved in the local blues world and the Abbey Lounge garage-rock circuit. They play their first local shows in nine years this week.
Of all the songs ever written about a woman violated by her brother’s ghost after she decapitates him playing croquet, “The Musical Box” remains the best.
Unlike past concerts where Dylan gave what he could but the audience gave nothing back, at the Orpheum Bob seemed to be genuinely enjoying himself on stage.
Not all musical retrospectives are a guaranteed success, since time can put rust on many a talent, but Stevie Wonder was ebulliently up for the challenge.
“The name meant that we were going to present bands from all around the world, and that we wanted to ‘overthrow’ the pop establishment that had taken over radio.”
Stealing All Transmissions is slim, but nearly every page is filled with insight and originality.
Classical Music Commentary: Boston’s Lost Opportunity — How the BSO Board Chose Charles Munch over Leonard Bernstein