Tim Sommer

2 weeks ago | rockandrollglobe.com | Tim Sommer

Most art is about the passage of time. The rest is about the passages of time: The trails, rails, tunnels and skyways through, under and above the pastures of experience and the cities of memory, from the baby blanket to the burial shroud. Time — and our strange and ordinary, dramatic, and mundane transit through this life — is also the subject of Beauty’s Pride, the new, extraordinary, moving, vibrating, surprising, interstellar, emotional, light and heavy new studio album from Born Ruffians.

2 months ago | rockandrollglobe.com | Tim Sommer

When assessing the new studio work of any legacy musical act, I have one single criteria: If someone had never heard anything else by this artist, could this new record make them a fan? Think about that, okay? I believe that’s the least we should expect from a musician, whether they’re Bob Dylan or Blue Öyster Cult, Elvis Costello or Martha Argerich.

2 months ago | rockandrollglobe.com | Tim Sommer

Phil Ochs once said, “In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.”Beauty is fearless. Yet:Today, there is someone who is more frightened than you. Tonight, someone is hungrier than you. Right now, there is someone lonelier than you. There is someone more afraid of eviction, poverty, bankruptcy, exclusion, deportation, oppression. Put their heart in your hands, just for one moment. Then: Use your imagination, tender and wild.

Jan 19, 2025 | seattletimes.com | Tim Sommer

Funny place, the music business — it devours the young and ignores the old. Or at least that’s how it may appear. Aside from a handful of entrenched executives and a circuit of legacy acts, employment opportunities in the industry for those of AARP age might seem slim. But there’s a fascinating exception: Many of the industry’s most respected and consistently employed roadies, instrument techs and live sound people are well into their 60s and even 70s.

Jan 15, 2025 | nzherald.co.nz | Tim Sommer

Bob Czaykowski, known as Nitebob, 74, works with a mixing board as members of Lez Zeppelin rehearse at Smash Studios in Manhattan, January 2, 2025. Photo / Hiroko Masuike, The New York TimesSome of the live music industry’s most respected and consistently working roadies, instrument techs and sound people have been on the job for half a century. Funny place, the music business – it devours the young and ignores the old. Or at least that’s how it may appear.