Search results for

NPR's Athena Desai reports on up-and-comers OK Go, who are charging out of the Chicago scene and touring the country with their unique brand of power pop-rock. Radio host Ira Glass says the group is "like a boy band that got seduced by Queen and wound up in college instead of Orlando." They recall the melodic greats of the '70s and '80s, and provoke thoughts about the state of rock and roll today.

Dan Zanes, former lead singer for the 80s rock band The Del Fuegos, reinvents himself with folk-influenced music for children. His new CD is called Night Time!. Zanes visits with NPR's Scott Simon.

NPR's Guy Raz reports that this past weekend some ten thousand European fans converged on Berlin for a country/western music festival. Germans -- long fascinated with the American West -- are among Europe's most avid devotees of country/western. {The festival this weekend featured German language bands, line dancing, and performers in Indian headdresses attempting to re-create Native American dances.}

British guitarist and vocalist Romeo Stodart of The Magic Numbers talks about the band's music. The other members are his sister Michele, and Sean and Angela Gannon (also siblings). In sound, they've been compared to early Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.

Grateful Dead fans can once again easily download their favorite concert recordings. The band initially asked the Web site to stop the practice, but backed down after fans' outrage. Commentator Jake Halpern wonders if he is the only fan who is disappointed by the news.

NPR's Alison MacAdam tells the story of getting in touch with her best friend from kindergarten, Scott Hoffman, who is now a sensation in a disco-rock band called The Scissor Sisters. Hoffman explains how he uses music to fill the voids he felt growing up in Lexington, Ky.

Saxophonist Hank Crawford died Jan. 29 at the age of 74. The Memphis-born musician backed B.B. King and Ray Charles before going solo. He later became the musical director for Charles' band. Fresh Air remembers Crawford with a 1998 interview.

LCD Soundsystem's new album, called Sound of Silver, broadens the project's sound to make singer-writer-producer James Murphy's rhythms even more accessible.

Paddy Keenan is an Irish musician descended from a long line of traveling pipers. In the 1970s, Keenan cofounded the influential group the Bothy Band. The group added driving rhythms to traditional Irish music. On the CD The Long Grazing Acre, Keenan plays the Irish bagpipes. Keenan discusses his music with NPR's Melissa Block.

The rock band Wilco's latest CD, A Ghost is Born, was recorded during the lead singer's battle with an addiction to painkillers, among other distractions. Many of the Chicago group's songs reflect this tense and hallucinatory period in the singer's life. Critic Tom Moon has a review.