Jim Duffy

Hello, friends and listeners, my fourth album of instrumental pop music, “Field Report,” will be released on Jan. 8, 2027, and it's unlike anything I have released so far.

Like my first three records, “Field Report” strives to conjure the mood of an earlier, analog era, but this time, I played all the instruments and mixed all the tracks, in my small apartment. (If you care to know, I did not intend it to be this way. I thought I was making multitrack demos for a band recording, but as I got into issues such…

“Field Report,” by Linda Kamille Schmidt, flashe, mylar and graphite on mylar, 5" x 7".

That dynamic artwork above is by Bushwick-based artist Linda Kamille Schmidt. Linda is best known for her fabric and textile works, which are often wall-size and which feature overlapping translucent fabric. She also creates smaller textile pieces intended to either be framed or hang free.

When I last visited Linda in her studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn, she was busy fulfilling a commission for a very large fabric work…

And you are the first to know. More details to come …

To hear this track, go to the “Listen” page and scroll to the bottom.

In the summer of 1986, Hilly Krystal, the owner of CBGB, invited Rods and Cones to record some tracks for the club's cassette-only label, “Off the Board.” The band had been gigging a lot, and we were in good form. Hilly set up a recording rig in the club, and the idea was to record our set in the afternoon, then record our set again that evening in front of a live audience. They would pick the best takes from each set. The recording…

Hello, friends and listeners, my music is finally available on Bandcamp. As you probably know, Bandcamp is a listener-friendly and artist-friendly platform for streaming, downloads and CDs.

My three full-length releases, “Pale Afternoon,” “Mood Lit” and “Side One,” are now available on Bandcamp. I hope you'll go there and have a listen.
 

From a notebook entry dated 14 June 2002:

Rods and Cones is coming out of the woodwork, with a vengeance.

Go check out "Education in Love" here, freshly available!

The band, in its first iteration, performed and recorded from 1982 through 1988. One track, "Round Room," from 1983, appeared on the compilation "Boston Rock and Roll, Volume 3." Then came our self-titled, five-song EP in 1985, featuring the Boston-area hit "Education in Love." Finally, in 1988, came our swan song, the full-length album "New Breed." Some live material was also released on…

OK, I'm biased, and I am also privileged to be friends with some people who are making fabulous music. Here are three new releases from friends - let me pull your coat in their direction.

Mary Brett Lorson, Themes From Whatever 

Mary Brett Lorson lives in the Ithaca, N.Y., area and has been a prolific and multi-talented artist for many years. She came to prominence in the 1990s as the singer and co-songwriter for the band Madder Rose, which made waves in both the U.S. and U.K. Since then, she has released an…

Since I last wrote, I have been hanging out in the late 16th and early 17th century. I have been finding my way back to the earliest roots of keyboard music, and I don't mean Jerry Lee Lewis.

Lately I've been playing pieces by the Renaissance-to-Baroque composer William Byrd (1540-1623), who may have been the first full-on keyboard virtuoso. In Byrd's day, the keyboard was a relatively new instrument, dating back only to the 1400s. Think about it - people had been playing lutes and harps for centuries, but…

Let me tell you about my brief career as an accordion player.

In 1995, I was in the band Martin's Folly, and we were making our first album with producer Eric "Roscoe" Ambel. Singer Chris Gray and I had written some tunes that were "rootsy" or that harkened back to old-time styles. In fact, one or two tunes sounded like sea chanties. "Accordion!" That's what I yelped. "We need an accordion!"

So I went in search of an accordion. At that time, hard to believe, there were two full-time accordion shops in…