If you haven’t heard, the state tourism board has dubbed 2011 the “Year of Alabama Music”, and it certainly seems as if their timing was right. The pall that fell around the music scene in Birmingham after the messy demise of City Stages has apparently lifted. There is a flood […]
I hate Valentine’s Day. Call me the Love Grinch if you will, but as far as I’m concerned, never has there been a more loathsome, extraneous and humiliating holiday than the orgy of consumerism known as Valentine’s Day. One could say the same thing about Christmas, but at least on […]
Walking away from success is one of the hardest things artists can do, yet it is a choice that they often must face. Entry into the commercial marketplace with what amounts to an extension of your soul means viewing that piece of yourself as a commodity, which can destroy the […]
Dancing. We all do it, whether we trot our stuff on the dance-floors of Birmingham’s local clubs or wiggle to a favorite mix in the privacy of our own bedrooms. Even the most bumbling wallflower has surely tapped a toe to a good beat now and then. Dancing is a […]
If you spend much time walking or driving around the city of Birmingham, you have probably seen some of the recent additions to Birmingham’s graffiti collection. I am talking, of course, about the “You are beautiful” tags, which have appeared in various sizes ranging from giant building spanners to small […]
Right now, at this very moment, you are surrounded by hidden treasure. No matter where you might be in Birmingham, in all likelihood there are a number of carefully concealed containers near you…Read the rest
I have heard soft and beautiful folk songs. I have felt the heartache from a passionate lyric etch traces of longing over a wistful melody. In fact, in recent years, as the record labels realized they could sell folk again and began homogenizing the term “indie”, I have heard an […]
Radio just isn’t what it used to be. When the vast wilderness of the FM bandwidth was thrown wide open in the late 1960s by a new rule from the FCC banning the practice of duplicating AM programming on FM stations, the space was quickly (and more important, inexpensively) filled […]
Terry Ohms is about to release his very first full-length album, and he doesn’t exist. That is to say, he exists only in some dusty corner of Vulture Whale frontman Wes Mcdonald’s brain, waiting patiently for his moment in the sun. Well, that moment is now, and the result is […]