Cory Hanson, now four albums deep into his career with Drag City Records, is one of the label’s alt-rock/folk/psyche/psychedelic rock artists du jour. He’s performing selections from his recently released full-length I Love People with the same grace as if they had been in his oeuvre since the very start of his career. He never appears like he’s trying to sell his new material to the audience or convince them to stay watching instead of getting a refill at the bar. Read my full review of his recent gig in Boise via Music Connection.
Drag City’s Cory Hanson Breezes Through Boise With Graceful Gig
Posted in Concert Reviews, Reviews with tags Cory Hanson, Drag City on 08/26/2025 by Kurt OrzeckLed Zeppelin’s ‘Live EP’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Led Zeppelin on 08/22/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Archival Led Zeppelin material almost always boils down to semantics, and this collection of four songs is the ultimate case in point. Read my full review on Music Connection.
Slake’s ‘Let’s Get Married’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Slake on 08/21/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Slake’s Centrifugal force Mary Claire proves on their debut that they are an outlier. The musician also makes the very convincing points that the power of love is much, much stronger than statistical data; far more precious than the way we carelessly bandy about the word in our degraded and thus devalued lexicon. Read my full review at Post-Trash.
RIP Brent Hinds of Mastodon (and, for a Fleeting Moment, ‘Game of Thrones’
Posted in News with tags Brent Hinds, Game of Thrones, Mastodon on 08/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Stress Positions Frontman ‘Voice[s] Thoughts Fully and Without Fear’
Posted in Interviews with tags Stress Positions on 08/20/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re now living in a critical juncture in human history with a clear delineation between the cowardly and the brave, between those turning a blind eye to atrocities and those who are standing up to be counted, and those who lack moral character and those who don’t. Among those fighting the good fight are Stress Positions, a hardcore-punk band from Chicago that refuses to deviate from their crusade for justice and equality five years into a dizzying blur of a career. Read my full interview with the band on Post-Trash.
Mawiza’s ‘ÜL’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Mawiza on 08/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Mawiza, an indigenous metal/folk group born and bred in sacred Mapuche Nation lands in Chile, is more than just a band, despite their compelling and unique sound. In fact, the posse even have a mission statement: “to preserve ancestral roots, rescue indigenous moral values and to promote biodiversity conservation, guided by the indigenous worldview and struggle.” Perhaps that’s a mouthful, but it’s fitting for a band whose deafening groove metal is an earful. And with their third record, ÜL, the quartet are on the right track, drawing recognition and even popularity at a rapid clip.
Read my full ÜL review on Treble, Mawiza’s harrowing account of the heinous human rights abuses that the Chilean government wrought upon the Mapuche Nation, and the band’s exclusive comments to The Bad Penny about their recent collaboration with Gojira on a song about the environmental crisis that far too many of us continue to ignore.
Cory Hanson’s ‘I Love People’: Two Cent Review
Posted in Album Reviews, Reviews with tags Cory Hanson on 08/11/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Wand frontman Cory Hanson’s fourth solo outing confronts American grift culture with hope and a communal spirit, as his backing players seem to prevent him from turning inward and catastrophizing. Read my full review at FLOOD.
Thanks to Treble for New Psychedelia Column
Posted in Uncategorized with tags psychedelia, Treble on 08/06/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
It is with great delight that I can now share with you, dear readers, that I’ll be spearheading a new quarterly column on psychedelia albums for Treble. Of course, I’ll post announcements about new editions of the series on this here Bad Penny website, as soon as they’re published. Read more abut Treble‘s new series here.
Pet Sounds #59: Flummox’s Love for Their Pets Is Unwavering
Posted in Interviews with tags Alyson Blake Dellinger, Flummox on 08/05/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
When The Bad Penny caught up with Flummox front woman Alyson Blake Dellinger in April via video chat, she was in her comfort zone: Hanging out with her cats and wearing a cat ears headband in solidarity with her feline friends. The Nashville-area multi-instrumentalist was clearly in her happy place, but her smile was set to grow even bigger come Friday, with the release of the latest album by her bizarro heavy-rock/psych/funk/jam band, Southern Progress.
The experimental band describes itself as creators of “genre-fluid sounds for the strange & nocturnal,” and that couldn’t be more evident than on their fifth studio record. It’s Flummox’s second for Needlejuice, the label whose first release–the 2017 album Polygondwanaland by similar-minded King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard–put it on the map. For their own part, Flummox have blazed their own trail as a queer/transfemme quintet to be reckoned with. Dellinger–who plays bass and piano, in addition to providing vocals–launched the band in 2012.
But while we could go on and on abut the band, we know why you clicked into this story: to see heartwarming pics of the band members’ many pets
Continue readingRock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #5
Posted in Fun And Games on 08/05/2025 by Kurt Orzeck
Solution here.
For previous rebuses (rebi? Reba?), give these a go:
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #4
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #3
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #2
Rock ‘N’ Roll Rebus #1
The Bad Penny (beta) 