Elvis Costello brings an early St. Patrick’s Day, and a lot else unexpected, to the Park West

Being an Elvis Costello fan has been like being a Bob Dylan fan, or a Neil Young fan. There is too much to keep up with. Too many alternate takes. Too many collaborations. Too many lyrics. Too many recordings to keep track of, new and old. Worse, a lot of …

The two best songs by The Band, according to Elvis Costello

(Credit: Alamy) Despite hitting the charts and sparking his career during punk’s late 1970s explosion, Elvis Costello‘s heart was always in the songbook of yesteryear. Initially penning spiky new wave hits such as ‘Pump It Up’ and ‘Oliver’s Army’ with his …

Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve headed to Ann Arbor

Afternoon Briefing: Canada and the EU swiftly retaliate against Trump’s tariffs

Good afternoon, Chicago. For more than a decade, Black teachers have left the district at higher rates than any other demographic, according to Chicago Public Schools data. Black teachers now represent 20.6% of the district’s teaching staff, while Black …

What the World Needs Now is Bacharach: The legendary composer's right-hand man recalls his songs

Burt Bacharach died in 2023, but the iconic composer's creative music lives on courtesy of the “What the World Needs Now” tour. The jaunt — which features iconic singer-songwriter-producer Todd Rundgren and vocalist Wendi Moten of “The Voice” — as well …

How The Knack wrote My Sharona, the one hit wonder to end all one hit wonders

For Doug Fieger, the secret of songwriting success was to stay in touch with his inner teenager. That meant raging hormones, unrequited love, and girls, girls, girls. “When The Knack started, I wrote songs about girls,” the late frontman told me in 2008. “ …

The Burt Bacharach Songbook Gets the Star Treatment in Ventura

“What the world needs now” is quite a sentence starter for our day and age. Lucky for Majestic Ventura Theater concertgoers on March 22, Todd Rundgren, Wendy Moten, and a nine-piece multi-instrumentalist ensemble playing the music of Burt Bacharach are …

My Wedding Day with Laura O'Mahony: We asked guests to bring a cake — you'd be allergic

We got married on August 23, 2012, in the North Cathedral in Cork. It’s where my parents got married and they also got engaged there. Afterwards we went to what was called the Carlton in Kinsale at the time. We’d gotten engaged the previous year in July …

Céline Dion Warns Fans of ‘Unsanctioned’ AI-Genera

Canadian singer Céline Dion has warned fans of AI-generated music claiming to feature her. In an Instagram message posted on Friday, the legendary singer’s social media team told her fans to be wary of AI-generated music and videos. “It has come to our …

Every Matthew Sweet Album, Ranked

Matthew Sweet was born in Nebraska in 1964, and drew inspiration from the British Invasion bands dominating the charts just as he came into the world. Sweet went to college in Athens, Georgia, and started several bands in the city’s buzzing scene, …