LAST YEAR WAS A ROLLER COASTER ride for Marcy Playground. There was excitement early in the year with the trio’s debut album release on EMI. Then there was devastation when the EMI label shut its doors, leaving the band in…

ARISTA AUSTIN RECORDING ARTIST Robert Earl Keen’s relentless performing and fanatical following reaches far beyond the traditional country folk audiences that come to mind when you visualize a singer/songwriter from the Lonestar State; a large percentage of Keen’s fans are…

IN THE SO-CALLED GENRE of “y’alternative” country music, Jack Ingram is riding the wave of artists who are breaking new ground. Ingram thinks it’s a strange phenomenon that anyone would have to pave the way for what is really considered…

YOU MAY NOT HEAR the Deftones on mainstream radio or see the band on prime-time MTV, but somewhere deep in the pits of abrasive heavy metal rock, there is a success story building. The Sacramento-based band has spent most of…

NINETEEN-YEAR-OLD R&B crooner Usher is riding high with his second album on LaFace Records, My Way, and a No. 1 platinum single, “You Make Me Wanna.” Unlike many of his urban music contemporaries, Usher, whose full name is Usher Raymond,…