Start with plenty of great Southern rock. Then mix in funk, fusion, R&B, blues, and a righteous portion of sacred steel, and you’ve got Marvelous Funkshun, the quintet from Winston-Salem NC who have been cooking up their musical recipe since 2014. The band is on the road after releasing a fine new five-song EP. They…
An album has been riding around in my car and in my bag for the last two months. I have listened to it more than a dozen times but kept delaying my review for “other stuff.” So I am remedying that situation now. The Oafs first appeared on our radar screen when they released their…
Row Jomah, a fine rock quintet from Clearwater FL, have been around for several years, although we didn’t run across them until ZenFest in February of 2015. They immediately impressed with their tight musicianship, great lyrics, and unbridled enthusiasm. By July, they had released their debut album titled Cat People! MusicFestNews published an extensive On…
A short 13 months ago, we stumbled across a Tampa trio called The Reality at a wonderful microfest in Plant City, ZenFest. Guitar, bass and drums rumbled through rock, funk, jazz, blues, ska and just plain fun. These guys were quirky good. In short succession, they issued their first album, Rhetoric, and we covered the…
A little over a year ago, we reviewed Time to Go, the outstanding debut album by The Orange Constant, another in an amazing succession of bands from Athens, Georgia. We were then delighted to get to see them live at last summer’s Great Outdoors Jam, confirming everything we wrote at the time. Next up was…
Your best memories of the Rolling Stones likely come from the first songs and albums of theirs that you remember. There was an incredible string of five albums in five years, starting in 1968 with Beggar’s Banquet, and a release each of the next four years: Let It Bleed, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, Sticky Fingers…
MusicFestNews wants to send Miss Nikki Glaspie a birthday present, since today (yes, it’s December 25th!) is her birthday. After much debate, we decided on a review of The Nth Power’s superb new album Live to Be Free! Glaspie is the powerhouse drummer at the engine of The Nth Power, the New Orleans juggernaut, and…
Say, are you looking for the perfect gift for that music-lover friend of yours? Or perhaps for yourself? Have we got a suggestion for you! Order/pick up/buy/download Rejuvenation, the 1974 release by The Meters. WHAT? You don’t KNOW about this record? Why, this will become one of your desert island records (assuming, of course, that…
Joe Marcinek is a remarkable man. He is the catalyst bringing together talent from all across the country for short tours of amazing music. If you were playing the musical version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, you’d win every time if you picked Marcinek. In the past year or so, for instance, he has…
NoNeed, the reggae/rock/fusion quintet from Tampa, are excited to release their excellent new EP, The Beginning, their first new recording since 2013’s All That We Are. In that time, NoNeed have been delighting fans with their energetic, positive vibe, with the key on fusion: ska, rocksteady, reggae and rock. NoNeed are: Sebastian Tenorio, vocals, guitar;…