Jedd Beaudoin

In 2011, after more than a decade of non-stop touring and several changes to its lineup, Drive-By Truckers was a band on the verge of collapse. Guitarist Mike Cooley was suffering a frightening case of writer’s block and everyone in the band was tired of the road and, to a degree, each other. Band co-founder Patterson Hood says there was only one thing the group could do.

Thursday, April 17:

Formed in 1981 Scotland’s Big Country’s biggest moment in the United States came with the 1983 album The Crossing, which featured the song “In A Big Country.” The band continued to have commercial success outside the United States after that release but The Crossing remains the group’s best-known work on these shores. We’ll hear selections from that release as well as music from Tin Can Trust, 2010 release by Los Lobos.

Friday, April 18:

Homo Erraticus— Latin for “wandering man”—is the latest release from longtime Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson. Written early last year this new album examines British history from the deep past forward. The listener makes spectacular leaps through time and place across the hour-plus recording. The story is about the spectacular leaps that humankind has taken over the millennia.

Monday, April 7: Listen for selections from Waiting For Columbus, the 1978 live album by April featured artist Little Feat. The record featured many of the band’s classic songs from its first era (c.1971-79) but also featured the Tower of Power Horns. We’ll also hear selections from Phish’s 2010 performance of the album as well as selections from In My Soul, the new album by blues and soul artist Robert Cray.

Anything worth possessing is worth sacrificing, even fighting for, and your career is no exception to the rule. For the Wichita, Kansas native Antimosity, the nine years that he has been grinding to maximize his full potential as a hip hop recording artist has been well worth the wait. The charismatic wordsmith is well prepared for everything coming his way, because he worked hard to get here.

Since its inception six years ago, the Houston, Texas band The Tontons has won major critical acclaim and slowly grown a loyal fanbase. The quartet issued its latest album, Make Out King and Other Stories of Love, earlier this year to positive reviews. Some critics have noted that the band doesn’t quite fit into any easy niche. In an era where comparisons to more established acts serves as a kind of shorthand for whether you might or might not like an act, The Tontons is a band that’s almost peerless in its approach to contemporary music.

Monday, March 31: We’ll close out our March features on Beck and of Montreal and hear from our April featured acts Little Feat and Drive-By Truckers with a sampling from Little Feat’s 1973 release Dixie Chicken and Southern Rock Opera, the 2001 album from Drive-By Truckers. The record, true to its title, examines life in the south through the prism of legendary southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Opening this weekend at Mosley Street Melodrama is Carol Hughes’ Reno County 911: The Adventures of Starsky and Hutchinson. The production opens April 3 and will close May 24. Mosley Street Melodrama will present an uncensored performance of the play at a date to be determined during that run.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has just released his memoirs of his time in both the Bush and Obama White Houses. It’s called Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary At War. In it, Gates writes about situations in China, the Middle East, and Russia.

Gates, who holds a Ph.D. in Russian and Soviet History, writes in Duty that he viewed Vladimir Putin as a “stone-cold killer,” and that he's been watching Russia once more with a close eye.