Steve Earle recalls the late great Townes Van Zandt

Steve Earle’s admiration for Townes Van Zandt is nearly as legendary as the two men themselves. Point one: A teenage Earle started following the iconic country singer-songwriter upon discovering him in Houston back in 1972. Point two: He named his first son after him, the emerging Justin Townes Earle who’s now commanding attention for his own potent honky tonk delivery and lyrical skills. Point three: He just released an entire album covering 15 Van Zandt songs, simply titled Townes. Recording the core vocals and guitar tracks live in his New York apartment last September, the gritty Grammy-winning Earle is now taking the musical tribute—and his memories of one of the most underappreciated and prolific poets—on the road, and he’ll be hitting The Rio at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 7. When he talks about Van Zandt, whose infamous life of alcohol and drug abuse ended on New Year’s Day of 1997 at the age of 52, Earle’s tone shifts restlessly between poignant awe of the man and his influence, to somber lament (and riled frustration) for the fame, health and success that his idol never obtained. Like Van Zandt, Earle rose in the growlin’ blues, country-rock songwriting ranks only to fall to his own substance abuse and eventual imprisonment in the early ’90s. Unlike Van Zandt, he made it out of the darkness—sobering up and singing again to reclaim himself, a family and his lauded career. Townes Van Zandt epitomized the struggling, self-destructive folk phenom that could never quite enjoy the brilliance he emanated, and now Steve Earle is giving his greatest mentor what he could never hold onto in life: the spotlight.

Rapper Really Doe shares tales of a misspent youth
One day in Chicago in the late ’80s, a 9-year-old, self-described “spoiled kid” named Warren Trotter came home to a brutal shock: While he was out, his father had died of a heart attack. “The last words I said to my pops was, “A’ight, Dad, I’m goin’ to the store,’” Trotter recalls.

Hope Sandoval returns with the Devil on her shoulder

Despite being a seasoned performer and the enigmatic voice behind the dreamy ’90s folk pop cult band, Mazzy Star, Hope Sandoval is notoriously pained by the thought of performing. It’s been eight years since a major tour, and her return to the road with Colm Ó Cíosóig in the Warm Inventions, which kicks off this Friday, Sept. 18 at the Brookdale Lodge, is no light affair—literally and metaphorically.

DJ Tom LG combines the past and the present
The annual Burning Man festival is a unique fusion of the ancient and futuristic, the human and the digital. The very nature of its Nevada desert location, which puts its participants face-to-face with many of the same basic survival issues with which our primitive ancestors grappled, ensures a somewhat archaic feel, yet the tribal festivities are enlivened by electronic music and state-of-the-art technology.

In short, it’s probably the only place in the world where you might see a robot cruising past a cluster of naked people dancing around a fire.

One would be hard-pressed to find a better DJ for a Burning Man after-party than Tom LG, whose musical tastes epitomize this synthesis of the archaic and modern. “Part of the electronic music scene is to be continually moving forward: Don’t look back; that record was played yesterday, therefore, it’s obsolete,” offers LG, who will be spinning records at this Wednesday’s post-Burning Man party at Moe’s Alley along with DJ Seek, Little John and Rob Monroy. In contrast to that, he notes, “I think the essence of what I’m about is this old and this new, this past and present. I ride this line back and forth, and when the two come together is when I think I’ve created the best experience for people.”

New West Guitar Trio proves that less is more.

Everybody’s familiar with that common affliction that plagues many bands. You know, the inherent case of the LGES, otherwise known as Lead Guitarist Ego Syndrome, which can breed head-to-head vying for the spotlight between singer and ripping soloist; that Catch-22 that can ultimately make and then break a band.