A Thousand Roads

Rory Block’s new CD, Keepin’ Outta Trouble, is the sixth album in her “Mentor Series” saluting the blues masters who’ve had a profound impact on her music. This time she pays tribute to Bukka White, one of the most influential country blues artists in history, bringing the soul and meaning of White’s songs to life as if heard for the first time since they were written and performed by the man, himself.

It takes a brave artist to blaze their own trail. From her birth-city of Belgrade to the Marz Studios in Texas where she recorded her dazzling new album, Katarina Pejak has walked countless roads and stuck a thousand pins in the map. Now, with Roads That Cross, this award-winning performer unveils a fresh set of songs that follow her muse wherever it leads her. Inspired by blues, jazz, country and rock 'n' roll ? and shaped by all the cities she's called home - this is music that crosses borders and brings people together. As producer Mike Zito says: "Katarina is one of a kind?"

It takes a brave artist to blaze their own trail. From her birth city of Belgrade to the Marz Studios in Texas where she recorded her dazzling new album, Katarina Pejak has walked countless roads and stuck a thousand pins in the map.

Brian Andrew Marek has been playing and singing his way in and out of a variety of bands (including Angus Tweed, Not Actual Size, Lemonade, Popcorn, Rocket Park, Bargain Basement and The Vertigo Swirl) for over 25 years and has, in recent years, carved out a low-key, low-fidelity niche with his Bargain Basement recording studio and Rubberstamp Records label.

The Past & Present label presents a new kind of psych-rock compilation: Mindrocker. With the vast amount of '60s garage and psych compilations that have appeared from around the world in the last few years, it's easy to understand why so many fans of the genre have felt overwhelmed by the deluge. There are, however, a select group of compilations that are widely regarded as genuine must-haves for collectors of '60s singles. Alongside Nuggets, Rubbles, Pebbles, Endless Journey, Chocolate Soup For Diabetics and the Perfumed Garden, Mindrocker stands out as a treasure trove of '60s U.S. psych and garage music. Widely applauded for its high sound quality and detailed liner notes, courtesy of Hans-Herman Pohle, Mindrocker is widely-regarded as the launching-point of many a U.S. psych collection as well as an affordable way to locate rare singles by bands which went on to record classic albums for major record companies.

The Roman poet Statius called the via Appia “the Queen of Roads,” and for nearly a thousand years that description held true, as countless travelers trod its path from the center of Rome to the heel of Italy. Today, the road is all but gone, destroyed by time, neglect, and the incursions of modernity; to travel the Appian Way today is to be a seeker, and to walk in the footsteps of ghosts.

It speaks to the failure of medieval Europe, writes popular historian William Manchester, that "in the year 1500, after a thousand years of neglect, the roads built by the Romans were still the best on the continent." …