Blurbs

I think it’s clear at this point that if mainstream rock music is to continue to evolve, at all, it will have to in some way prioritize an element of funk, as a sort of stylistic catalyst or anchor. This is just my measurement from imbibing artists like Hozier, which seem bent toward a white-boy … Read more“Working toward Placing Black Mountain’s ‘Druganaut’ within the Forum of Political Commentary in Music”

To this day, it’s astonishing to me how much meaning I’m meeting and greeting with this band, how much inspiration they seem to have procured, whether in the bar, or the back alley behind it, or wherever. I mean, they’re the very definition of controlled popular rock, like Semisonic on prozac, if that’s possible. “Everything … Read more“Dolby’s Rupees: Vertical Horizon – ‘You’re a God’”

Really, despite my maniacal tirades during the Vinyl Me, Please craze of colored records and hip-hop vinyl plugging [1], I’ve always loved vinyl. I have this memory of a religious experience in my life, for instance, which was hearing my mom’s Neil Young – Decade LP, and its closeur, “Long May You Run”; on wax. … Read more“If the Entire World Refuses to Acknowledge the Difference between Bluetooth and Analog Sound, Why Shouldn’t I?”

Dear Ryan: It is on this hopeless, cloudy day in Arizona that I choose to write to you, apropos of your three-out-of-10 rating redolent to our 2001 album, Bleed American.  You see, cloudy days aren’t supposed to happen in Arizona. We know how to deal with them for their non-frequency. I wrote a bunch of … Read more“A Homespun Letter from Jim Adkins to Ryan Schreiber”

I remember, vaguely, the surreal worlds, the constant bevy of funny characters and the refreshingly low-budget aesthetic, as if some sort of phenomenological process were taking place within comedy, within television and within my life. I remember Nancy Kerrigan getting attacked and everybody making fun of her, including, I think, a dude at the Academy … Read more“One for Rocko’s Modern Life.”

I’m sitting here on a sunny Sunday off, looking ahead to spring and just vibing off of my everyday life right now. In my mind is a sort of thermal, spiraling sense of bright spirit — I’m not sure if it’s because I work with Jamaican people now or what (literally in the kitchen five … Read more“Winwood Piece, or, on Definition through Abstraction within Models of the Idee Fixee”

* There’s a 1966 play by Tom Stoppard referencing two characters from Hamlet, titled “Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead.” The titular information is provided, ipso facto, as a plain fact attached to no emotional undulation, such as, hearing, say, in true postmodern fashion, “Jimmy Kimmel is slated to host Sunday’s academy awards.”  .. Around the … Read more“Band of Horses and Interpol Are Dead”

Starting around Christmas and leading up until a couple of days ago, I was unemployed, languishing around my apartment, many a day, with nothing but my thoughts. As a result, I started to gather certain sort of lofty, idealistic ideas of what to do with my life, one of which was being one of the … Read more“A Couple of My Ideas for SNL Skits”

In the downtown area of South Bend, Indiana, my hometown, the State Theater sits conspicuously empty, and now, even boarded up. It’s a minor disappointment — probably not as grave as the giant, still-vacant College Football Hall of Fame, which, to my knowledge, hasn’t had any foot traffic in about 13 years or so. Still, … Read more“Pitting Seinfeld and The Simpsons Together as Cultural Foils, as Particularly Pertains to the Classic Rock Element of ‘Psychedelia’”

It’s January 12, 2025, and Michiana braces for a deep freeze. We’d been due for a cold winter,  and we’re surely getting it, with highs in the next few days in the teens, and some forecasted single-digits within a week or so. A stately, tranquil, white blanket of snow cloaks the landscape.  We all, as … Read more“Less Gods and More Goddard “