by Marisa Torrieri Bloom Camp Crush, the musical incarnation of husband-wife duo Jennifer Deale and Chris Spicer, pushes out powerful, soaring, synth-driven pop-rock songs with such conviction that you’d think they’d been doing this forever. But as it turns out, when they burst onto Portland, Ore., music...
Cheri Magill and I have nothing in common. That was my first impression when I encountered the songstress mama of three with the sunniest disposition and pretty retro dresses. Sure, we’re both breeders who write our own music. But I’m the blonde bad girl in a...
by Marisa Torrieri Bloom I came of age in the Lilith Fair era, in the late 1990s when guitar-wielding goddesses like Sarah Mclaughlin, Liz Phair and Shawn Colvin ruled alternative radio. I remember the summer when the latter, Colvin, got her big break with the popularity...
by Marisa Torrieri Bloom Before many of us had kids, life centered on long jam sessions with bands, and writing songs in uninterrupted spurts. But Singer-songwriter Jess Penner — a self-described cheerful and cheeky, creatively ADD artist from Los Angeles, who was raised on a banana farm...
by Marisa Torrieri Bloom While Brooklyn is a place where dreams are made for so many creative types — rockmommies included! — Joanie Leeds didn’t ever intend to move to the borough when she began her music career more than a decade ago. [caption id="attachment_1857" align="alignright" width="300"]...
There are so many great children’s records out today that it’s hard to cut through the noise, even for an established songstress. [caption id="attachment_1632" align="alignright" width="300"] Priscilla Ahn, whose latest album 'La La La' has little listeners in mind[/caption] True to her signature style, pop-rock singer-guitarist Priscilla Ahn, an...
By Marisa Torrieri Bloom Like many musicians, singer-guitarist Laurie Berkner began her rock-and-roll career by throwing herself into the the NYC music scene, playing late-night gigs wherever she could get them. That was back in the mid-1990s, when the Internet was in its infancy, tethered to...