The Motet is leading the new Funk revival and today the band announces a special New Year’s Eve celebration at Portland, Oregon’s Crystal Ballroom on December 31, 2014.  Known for throwing some of the best dance parties around, The Motet’s “New Year’s Eve in Funklandia” promises a festive night of great music, good vibes, and plenty of surprises.

Handmade Moments’ first album is a collection of fun, sultry, inspiring, thoughtful tracks. With songs stretching from political to simply lovely, the duo (Anna Horton and Joel Ludford) offers an expansive array of styles and lyrics through their 12 songs. Musically, the album is rooted in strings and jazz; bluegrass, folk and Americana float in throughout the album. Horton and Ludford’s musical and vocal styles complement each other well; her voice sails, while his tethers.

The McCoury family legacy is one of the richest in bluegrass. Father Del McCoury was a crucial member of Bill Monroe’s Bluegrass Boys and achieved legendary status with his souring lead vocals on signature Monroe songs and originals. His band is a family band, and has been for a while.

San Francisco’s biggest music festival is set to take over Golden Gate Park for its seventh year next week. This year Outside Lands sold out in record time, within just hours of single day passes going on sale.

Keller Williams has announced his latest album release, DOS. DOS is a live-recorded collection of songs from the Grateful Dead with all proceeds benefiting the Rex Foundation. Keller’s talent and passion as a musician and for the Grateful Dead is reflected beautifully in DOS.

The Newport Folk Festival may not be a monster fest on the order of a Bonnaroo or a Coachella, but it has rejuvenated itself over the last half dozen years into a premier summer stop for a broad range of alternative, indie, country-rock and folk acts. Much of the rejuvenation has been the result of a conscious decision by festival organizers to loosen the definition of “folk” to include a much wider swath of bands – really anybody who could plausibly include an acoustic guitar at least somewhere in their set list.

The beach has always defined my summer. Whether as a child anticipating two weeks at the shore for the other 50 weeks each year, as a teen working at a summer camp and spending every daylight at or near the water’s edge, or in my twenties when I learned the fun of service industry work and living on my own at the Delaware Beaches; beach and summer have been synonymous. Four decades are staring me in the face and now, after just a few experiences in the past few years, I will add shows at The House of Blues to that list of the signs of summer.

A product of the 1960s San Francisco counterculture, the Grateful Dead inspired a fanatical loyalty from fans drawn as much by their music as the traveling carnival of seekers and misfits that followed them from venue to venue; yet there has always been a deep connection to the music from St. Louis local and regional Jews.

The pop-up and its small footprint we would call home for the next 4 nights was ready. The sun had long since set and the kids were happily snuggled under doubled over blankets in the 1975 Apache Mesa. The evening’s cold temperatures were more than the few packed layers of cotton could defend against, so Laura and I were doing our best to think warm thoughts and be thankful for the reprieve from last year’s unbearable heat as we sat outside in the still and dewy night.  Her vapor filled exhalation was caught in the beam from her headlamp, over top of the festival’s program.

British singer-songwriter Bobby Long, who now makes his home in New York City, is set for a series of live appearances, beginning with a return to The Drake Hotel in Toronto on August 6. Long will follow the Toronto show with one on August 16 in his adopted neighborhood when he appears at Rough Trade in Brooklyn, New York.