Jessica Misener

Photo: Kanye West and Jay-Z allegedly doing the handshake of the Freemasons (Complex Magazine)

NB: It should be obvious, but the point of this article is to unpack and decode some of the reference...

I have my first smattering of print reviews out in Under the Radar's summer issue, hot off the California printing presses! You can check them out here. *Bonus! They're all really short.

This is a wee bit overdue, but I had the chance to meet and interview the wonderful and talented duo The Civil Wars for Relevant's July/August cover. Not only are Joy Williams and John Paul White enviously talented, they're also some of the warmest people I've ever gotten to interview. I also had the pleasure of chatting with esteemed producer Charlie Peacock and writer Matthew Paul...

The Kills' show on Friday night at Terminal 5 started off with a few hiccups: spoken word poet BP Fallon sandwiched himself in as a bizarre opening act following Cold Cave; the drum machine launched into the backbeats of "Sour Cherry" a tad too early; at one point Jamie Hince had to reprimand a fellow in the audience for shoving a girl ...

My interview with the lovely band The Kills is on the cover of the new May/June issue of Relevant magazine. Click here to read it! (PDF) Or at least glance at it before you flip to the Rob Bell story.

I will be leading a workshop next week at the Festival of Faith & Music at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Yay, Michigan! I've never been beyond Detroit, but still, yay!

The festival runs from April 7-9, and my workshop --which I'm calling "How to Critique an Album Without Sounding Like a Jerk"-- will be on Friday afternoon. But the real reason you might want to come will be t...

The Civil Wars are currently riding a publicity crescendo as mighty as their acclaimed blues-tinged folk, and the sold-out crowd at Rockwood Music Hall welcomed Joy Williams and John Paul White enthusiastically.  Williams sipped from a glass of red wine as she wrapped each song in her velvet blanket of a voice, and White's dobro guitar rang out sharper than southern whi...

A sold-out crowd of Brooklynites still loved their old-time rock 'n' roll enough to pack the Music Hall of Williamsburg for the inimitable Wanda Jackson on Friday night. Backed by Jack White on guitar and the Third Man Records studio band on everything else, the pint-sized queen of rockabilly shimmied in a white fringed jacket as she turned the venue into a rollicking house of good, old-fashi...

Cloaked in an ethereal ivory costume and her trademark red hair, Florence Welch flitted onstage Tuesday night for the second of her 2 sold-out shows at Terminal 5. Thanks to a recent performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, the British singer and her band have leapt into the mainstream stratosphere, mostly thanks to Julia Roberts eating gelato to the tune of "Dog Days are Over" in Eat P...

When a tall, redheaded supermodel opens her mouth, people pay attention. Last night, the sold-out crowd at Rockwood Music Hall looked on in reverential silence as the lovely Karen Elson beguiled them with the plaintive sounds from her debut album, The Ghost Who Walks. Backed by a band that included Jackson Smith, son of Patti Smith...