By Eleni P. Austin Summer is here. With “fun in the sun” and the “sand and surf” comes summer music. The perfect combination of carefree lyrics and hook-filled melodies. The Beach Boys pioneered the sound in the 60s with “Surfin’ Safari.” Bands as disparate as...
By Eleni P. Austin Hanni El Khatib is only 31 years old, but he seems like an old soul. Half Filipino, half Palestinian, El Khatib grew up in San Francisco, emersed in the Skateboard culture. He began his professional career as the creative director for a Skateboard fashion...
By Eleni P. Austin If you came of age in the late ‘70s/early 80s, chances are you remember when Punk Rock felt like a secret. Pre-internet, pre-MTV, maybe if you were lucky, Rolling Stone wrote a little blurb about your favorite Punk band. At the same time, small...
by Eleni P. Austin Mention the name Tom Jones, and people usually equate him with louche lounge singers like Wayne Newton and Englebert Humperdinck. While those singers seem content to trade on past glories and hit singles from 40 or 50 years ago, Jones is more of a musical...
By Eleni P. Austin There are two kinds of singers in Pop music. Vocalists like Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Celine Dion who are pitch-perfect with every glissando, melisma and crescendo flawlessly executed. But it’s technique over feeling, method over passion. Frank...
By Eleni P. Austin Back at the turn of the last century, vocalist Thomas Mars, guitarists Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz and bassist Deck D’Arcy formed the band Phoenix in Paris, France. As a garage band, Phoenix cut their teeth covering songs by Hank Williams,...
By Elini P. Austin It has been more than 25 years since the Smiths broke up, and guitarist Johnny Marr has finally released a proper solo album. Growing up in Manchester, England, Johnny Marr cycled through a series of bands before hooking up with singer/lyricist...
By Eleni P. Austin Growing up deep in the San Fernando Valley Taylor and Griffin Goldsmith had a peripheral connection to the music business, their father. By the time the Goldsmith brothers were born Lenny Goldsmith was a successful Malibu realtor. But back in the ‘70s,...
Jose James’ music defies easy categorization. Growing up in Minneapolis, the 35 year old was inspired by a variety of influences. His Irish mother, a dyed-in-the-wool hippie, introduced him to ‘60s Rock & Roll and Folk. His Panamanian father was a multi-instrumentalist,...
Mark Oliver Everett was passionate about music even as a toddler. Growing up in Virginia, he was obsessed with his older sister’s record collection. By age six, he talked his parents into buying a used drum kit at a garage sale. Soon, pounding on the drums wasn’t...
