Rick Cornell

It’s impossible to predict which songs my 5-year-old son will take a liking to. For a good while, a tune from country-music revivalists BR549 was on constant replay in the car, following two-week stands from the likes of Bruce Springsteen and the Waco Brothers. Recently it’s been “Hand to Mouth,” a cut off the 1998 […]

If you’ve ever been in the crowd when Scott Miller was onstage–be it with his old band the V-roys or his new outfit the Commonwealth–you undoubtedly have been asked the questions “Are you with us?” and, a few tunes later, “Are you still with us?” Same thing when Miller plays solo, only, of course, then […]

What’s brought these three 41-year-olds together at a Durham pub, even more than pitchers of Newcastle, is music. Two of the guys make music and have been doing so for over 20 years each. The third just tries to write about it. The nearby dwelling of one of the music-makers doubles as a rehearsal space […]

Grab a stack of reviews and write-ups of New York City-based trio the Silos, read five or six of ’em, and scratch your head as you wonder whether they all could possibly be about the same band. According to Buzz McClain in the Washington Post, the band creates “powerful earthy pop that sounds like the […]

“Who’s Elvis Presley?” That’s right up there with “Yeah, those are the two Amish guys who beat the crap out of me” and “Sorry, we’re all sold out of the Iron Butterfly box set” when it comes to utterances you’re least likely to overhear. Elvis Presley awareness is in our DNA; through some genetic voodoo, […]

If you’re looking for ideas for that hard-to-buy-for music fan on your holiday list, consider Chris Mills’ new The Silver Line. It’s an overstuffed bag of toys, a Russian nesting doll that keeps revealing new faces the more you dig, a gift that keeps on giving. “It’s all part of building that familiarity with the […]

The reign of Arrogance. Sounds like something straight out of a European history book, doesn’t it? The run of a particularly overbearing ruler perhaps. However, in terms of North Carolina music, it refers to most of the ’70s and into the early ’80s, the time period in which the band Arrogance released five records and […]

“I’m a rock ‘n’ roll guy,” explains Bobby Muller, “who got into this genre, if you wish, and I just love these guys.” Muller, the president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, is based in Washington, but his cadence and his rock ‘n’ roll bent are products of a New York City childhood. The […]

There’s a lot going on in “I Need a Train,” track number four on Kenny Roby’s new Rather Not Know. It has a train tune’s near-mandatory chug as well as the shuffle rhythm of a vintage Johnny Cash number. You’d be forgiven for thinking it was a contemporary of “Hey Porter” or maybe something from […]