I'm going to be on FM 102.1's Indie Soundcheck program on Sunday evening at 11 p.m. chatting with Ryan Miller for a bit about the new charity compilation Dark Was The Night, a mostly wonderful, two-disc sequel to the seminal No Alternative CD that sums up the increasingly folky state of indie-rock. For those who haven't heard the album (and it's worth hearing), Ryan will play a healthy sampling. ...

During the CD sales boom of the '90s, labels didn't need much of an excuse to release a tribute album, and although most of the decade's compilations were cheap cash-ins, a handful are true treasures. 1994's If I Were a Carpenter, which I found buried in a dollar bin in a Florida record store last month, remains a cherished relic from the era. It was an oddity from the start, assembling a slew of ...