When athletes attain enough rings around the tree stump to be considered veterans their personal fate becomes much more malleable. Take basketball player Kevin Garnett. When the Minnesota Timberwolves, the team that drafted the seven-footer and groomed him for more than a decade, put him on the trading block last year Garnett had veto power against being shuttled to any team that didn’t suit his individual criteria. Thus, he landed on the Boston Celtics and won a championship.

The same veteran shot calling authority exists for some musicians. Continue…

When something new strikes enough of a nerve to actually leave a wake of hope and inspiration, pundits and laymen alike rush to crown it as “the next” in a line of greatness. LeBron James is “the next Michael Jordan,” Jack White is “the next Jimi Hendrix” and so on. While the pigeonholing has to be flattering, it holds the newbies against a template already drawn. Thus has been the case with Conor Oberst, who for years has been anointed “the next Bob Dylan.” Continue…

Let’s be honest, Ra Ra Riot is a dumb name. It smacks of a long-forgotten inside joke that was never really that funny to begin with. It’s the kind of name that only appeals to its snarky initiators, as outsiders coolly practice articulating it (”RRR”) without coming off too obtuse. It’s the kind of moniker only a tight knit group not all that concerned with its perception would conjure Continue…

Buried underneath heaps of hype from the second their familiar keyboard driven single “Honest Mistake” hit the airwaves back in 2005, New York’s The Bravery were anointed rock’s next big thing before most people had even heard of them. Continue…

Belinda Carlisle, she of Go-Go’s and hot chubby chick fame, is now the chanteuse she always thought she could be. Yeah, she’s achieved impressive commercial success as both a punk/new wave starlet and a bona fide pop star, but as a female rapidly approaching 50 she didn’t want to swim in the muddied waters of Britney and Jessica any longer… Continue…

With their fifth album “The Alchemy Index” Orange County quartet “Thrice” stays true to form by evolving yet again. I’ll tell you right now that if another version of the group’s seminal debut, “The Illusion of Safety,” is what you’re looking for with this release

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