Doc Watson

Sadly, Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson died yesterday at the age of 89. With him goes a wealth of knowledge, technical facility, and musical authenticity that the steel string guitar has seldom known. The New York Times has written an absolutely wonderful obituary here which both lauds the man, and gives new comers to his work a succinct history of his importance. I highly recommend reading their eloquent account of his life.

Read on for my full thoughts.

Doc Watson: When The Roses Bloom in Dixieland

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Scout

As part of the release of Digcast VI which focuses on NYC music, we are posting on each band in the podcast over the next five weekdays. In the spotlight today is Scout, the music project of Ashen Keilyn and collaborators.

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Palomino

As part of the release of Digcast VI which focuses on NYC music, we are posting on each band in the podcast over the next five weekdays. In the spotlight today is Palomino, an alternative rock band of members Elijah Campbell Amitin, Mike Sweeney, and Pat Deeney.

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Field Mouse

As part of the release of Digcast VI which focuses on NYC music, we are posting on each band in the podcast over the next five weekdays. In the spotlight today is Field Mouse, a four piece dream pop band with members Rachel Browne, Andrew Futral, Danielle DePalma and Geoff Lewit.

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Town Hall

As part of the release of Digcast VI which focuses on NYC music, we are posting on each band in the podcast over the next five weekdays. In the spotlight today is Town Hall, a folk trio of Stefan Weiner, Phoebe Ryan, and Jesse Kranzler that got started at NYU.

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Wolfgang Schaefer: Typewriter

Wolfgang Schaefer and his brother Benjamin are from Milwaukee WI and have released a new album entitled Typewriter. Their work is acoustically driven, but vocally centered which leaves plenty of room for the thoughtful lyrics to speak clearly to the listener. Their sound world is noted for tasteful use of bluegrass instruments, brass, piano and vocal harmony. A strength of the album is the layering of these textures which create arrival points as well as high and low dynamic plateaus.  

The full album is nine tracks of intimate song writing that deals heavily in nostalgia and melancholy. The first track, Pocket Full of Pills, is an excellent representation of the album as a whole for both it's lyrical and musical content. The opening gesture of mandolin and piano pull in the audience with its engaging crescendo before Wolfgang's tranquil voice enters to spin a tale love's less than sunny side. Typewriter feels like an overcast morning with an era of familiarity and comfortable melancholy. It is that part of sadness which we can all relate to and sometimes look back at with sentimentality.

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Cultfever

As part of the release of Digcast VI, which focuses on NYC music, we are posting on each band in the podcast over the next five weekdays. We start today with Cultfever, a Brooklyn-based duo of Tamara Jafar and J. Peter Durniak.

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Digcast Episode VI: NYC Roundup 1

I am very happy to unveil Digcast Episode 6, the first edition devoted to the music scene of New York City where I live. It features five bands from the area. In addition to sharing one of their songs, I spoke to each of them about the chosen song as well as some things they love about NYC.

The playlist of this episode is:

Digcast Episode VI

Check out our site all week for posts on each band. Hope you dig!

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