In the wake of yet another mass shooting in America, the predictable responses are already pouring in. The do-nothing crowd of NRA-funded Republican politicians are mechanically offering their utterly meaningless “thoughts and prayers” and blaming everything and anything other than guns. Meanwhile, the gun control crowd (of which I’m a …

Dierks Bentley has a knack for choosing just the right party songs – propulsive, hands-in-the-air jams that are all but irresistible whether on the radio or on the stage. Perhaps surprisingly, the singer-songwriter considers his latest single, the empowering “Woman, Amen,” to be cut from that same cloth. “It’s a …

Brandon Lay was heading home from a gig one evening when a new melody swirled its way into his head. Without taking his eyes off the road, the country-rocker grabbed his iPhone and got to work. “I didn’t have any lyrics yet, so I was just humming, ‘yada yada yada’ …

If one could adjectivize the president, there has never been anything Trumpier than Donald Trump‘s posture on nuclear weapons. It’s an issue where he embraces contradictory thoughts in the same breath with routine. In candidate Trump’s debate with Hillary Clinton on September 26, 2016, he said, “I would certainly not …

Moving to Nashville was a bigger decision for Bex Chilcott than it is for most musicians. For Chilcott, who performs under the name Ruby Boots, heading to Music City meant more than simply leaving home. It meant leaving her native Australia and starting a new life more than 11,000 miles …

Steve Earle and his longtime band the Dukes return to the road this week with a series of City Winery shows across the country, leading up to next month’s launch of the Copperhead Road 30th Anniversary Tour. The newly announced trek will feature the songs from Earle’s third album, issued …

Pink delivered a strong rendition of the National Anthem ahead of Super Bowl LII Sunday night despite battling the flu. The singer, a self-professed Philadelphia Eagles fan, is from Doylestown, Pennsylvania, which is about 30 miles outside Philadelphia. Flanked by members of the military and an American flag, theBeautiful Traumasinger …

Rob Halford sings about fighting evil in the name of freedom in “Firepower,” the charging title track of Judas Priest‘s upcoming 18th studio album. The rest of the band, led by guitarists Glenn Tipton and Richie Faulkner, commands the sort of chugging riffs that made the group metal avatars in …

A lawsuit filed in Israel accuses two New Zealand activists of causingLorde to cancel her planned performance in Tel Aviv, The New York Times reports. The suit may be the first to employ an Israeli law that forbids calling for boycotts of Israel. The suit, which was filed on behalf …

The State of the Union rebuttal, once a platform for the minority party to showcase its best and brightest, has, after a series of prime-time bellyflops, become a somewhat less desirable gig for rising stars. People even say it’s cursed. Luckily, the man tapped to give the Democrats’ official response,a …