Music - Tom Irwin | Thursday, January 24,2013

Hot music for cold times

With these cold days upon us, what could be more appealing than checking out some hot music tunes for a thaw from this week of chilling weather?I recently received a warming message from Marina V, our

Band Spotlight | Thursday, January 24,2013

Old School Dropouts

By Tom Irwin

Look out world, here come the Old School Dropouts, a new band formed by Springfield music scene veterans to play “old school” rock. First imagined as a rock power trio in 2011 with Dan Lup

Band Spotlight | Thursday, January 17,2013

Deep Lunar Blue

By Tom Irwin

Original and classic rock jam band Deep Lunar Blue commemorates 120 shows as a band with a four year anniversary celebration this weekend. The rollicking band of Shane Quigley (guitar, vocals), Casey

Music - Tom Irwin | Thursday, January 17,2013

Fun with Greg Fundis

By Tom Irwin

Most frequently in this column, the musicians I interview are either in Springfield or from another place. This week I was very fortunate to speak with drummer Greg Fundis, a hometown hero now residin

Band Spotlight | Thursday, January 10,2013

SPREAD

By Tom Irwin

From origins as a college jam band formed at SIU-Carbondale in 2008 of friends drawn together by intellectual and interesting likes, SPREAD continues in a progressive march across the Midwest sharing

Music - Tom Irwin | Thursday, January 10,2013

Re-solutions recommended

By Tom Irwin

Certain commitments known as New Year’s resolutions are commonly concocted around the beginning of a calendar year and generally concern a makeover of the self, often dealing with all kinds of w

Music - Tom Irwin | Thursday, January 3,2013

Another year passed

By Tom Irwin

Me, oh my how the time does fly! Looks like we are into another year of life on Earth for those of us fortunate to be participating.As far as milestones for 2012, I think the best for me was seeing my

Band Spotlight | Thursday, January 3,2013

Bossa Azul

By Tom Irwin

Combining jazz guitar with Brazilian leanings, percussion beats of a universal nature and American blues harmonica with vocals in the original Portuguese of classic samba and bossa music, Bossa Azul i

Music - Tom Irwin | Thursday, December 27,2012

New Year’s news

By Tom Irwin

As I titled this end-of-the-year column I had no idea that the last two years I had come up with the same catchy words to name my final “Now Playing” of the year. I guess I started a tradi

Band Spotlight | Thursday, December 27,2012

China Ryder

By Tom Irwin

If what the world needs now is another Grateful Dead-style band doing a terrific take on the jam band genre, China Ryder is it. With former and current members of Perfunctory This Band, Brad Beneky (b