Dave Pirner made a name for himself with Soul Asylum — the Minneapolis rock outfit he formed in 1983 with fellow vocalist-guitarist Dan Murphy — and won a Grammy for the 1992 single “Runaway Train.” But before that, he was banking on something else entirely: his proficiency as a trumpet player. Read More

Like anchorman Howard Beale in the 1976 film “Network,” Laura Burhenn is as mad as hell, and she’s not going to take it anymore. Disheartened by today’s greedy, corporate-controlled society, The Mynabirds frontwoman vents about it on her existential new sophomore CD, “Generals,” which she opened with the zenlike koan “Karma Debt.” “That’s the first question I asked on the album: ‘What is my role as musician? And even if I sing my lungs out about this, is it going to make any difference?’” she says. “That’s where the whole thing starts — is it too late? Maybe it is.” Read More

When Kyle Thomas was a teen in rustic Brattleboro, Vt., he was a huge baseball enthusiast who ran with a mostly jock in-crowd. “But once I got into high school, everything changed,” says the man now known as King Tuff; the long-haired, Dali-mustached, tattooed rocker plays San Francisco tonight. “My new coach was such a jerk, I didn’t even feel like trying to play baseball anymore,” he says. “And I only went to one day of football practice, and that was enough, because the dude was like a drill sergeant. So I just got into music instead.” Read More

British Gothic-folk guitarist Bobby Long is justifiably excited these days. He co-composed “Let Me Sign,” which his actor friend Robert Pattinson sang on the “Twilight” soundtrack. More recently, he moved to New York City, and issued two recordings, “A Winter Tale” and “The Backing Singer EP,” on ATO. He also just wrapped a new fall-slated disc with producer Ted Hutt, featuring bluesy originals such as “Devil Moon,” “Waiting for Dawn” and “Blood in the Orchard.” “It’s a lot heavier — I’m playing electric guitar on every track,” he says. Read More

Vermont rocker Grace Potter wants to apologize to all of her close friends residing in the Bay Area. When she purposely circumnavigated San Francisco during a recent two-week drive from Los Angeles up the California coast in her tiny Fiat, she was on a mission, and she needed the time alone to completely rethink her new album, “The Lion The Beast The Beat,” whose sessions had hit a creative dead end. Read More

Stix Zadinia — drummer for Los Angeles hair-metal revivalists Steel Panther — admits to feeling slightly conflicted about the recent movie “Rock of Ages,” starring Tom Cruise as a decadent rocker from the genre’s Sunset Strip-Guns N’ Roses heyday. Read More

Three years ago, Brian Fallon truly believed the world was his oyster. His scruffy, Bruce Springsteen-inspired New Jersey outfit The Gaslight Anthem had received so much praise for its sophomore masterpiece “The ’59 Sound,” it caught the attention of The Boss himself, who joined the group onstage during shared English-festival bills. The band was picked to click, and the singer relocated to New York in anticpation of superstardom. But when a musically adventurous 2010 follow-up “American Slang” fizzled, Fallon was dumbfounded. Read More