The Lumineers are one of the bands that gets play on this one station my sous chef at work puts on. I usually say most of the music on this channel is like “dentist office music,” though much of it, I have to admit, is pretty decent “dentist office music.” The Lumineers would, no doubt, … Read more“On Pink Floyd, The Lumineers and the Sovereignty of Darkness”
There’s this bar that opened up not too long ago in Mishawaka, which I will render unnamed, hence keeping this article classified in a way that, if not ensuring my safety, might let me avoid a lot of annoying questions. By all accounts, it’s a nice place, and they offer an amazing 32 craft beer … Read more“Socially Accepted Leisure through Pain”
Nine years and change ago, I’d just gotten fired from this job in Indiana, so I did what anyone would do: took a Greyhound bus to Philly for the Roots mural unveiling on Broad St., just south of downtown. Little did I know, there was this thing going on in town that weekend called Roots … Read more“Is There a Better Summer Festival in America Than the Roots Picnic?”
Out of respect for the artists, I’m going to withhold their names from this post. I did, though, hope to shine some light on a sort of amusing, yet obviously problematic, situation I encountered in my survey of the music on Bandcamp today. Basically, it’s divided up into the genre, for the most part, with … Read more“Explication of a Funny but Troubling Phenomenon Surrounding Genre”
My favorite are these Chicago runts who come over to South Bend and act like they own the place. In their minds, I’m sure, they’re like these slick John-Cusack types, although, in reality, even Cusack has far more edge and firepower. But that’s another story. What I’m talking about are these stiff-necked dweebs who come … Read more“Chicago Runts”
I was born for the Spotify age. There’s no question. Vinyl records are like my caviar — they’re like that twice-a-year lobster/steak dinner downtown. Spotify is like my Burger King. I listen to a wide array of music, in large quantities, and I also have somewhat of the guilty white liberal in me, in that, … Read more“Is There an Extent to Which You Have to Be a Southerner to Appreciate Lynyrd Skynyrd?”
There’s probably a certain point on Jimmy Eat World’s breakthrough album Bleed American (2001) [1] where you feel the “Fiona Apple Effect” kicking in and you realize Jim Adkins is the “hardest button to button,” if you will. He’s probably a Virgo, like me, the type of guy who will think twice before wearing a … Read more“Will We Ever Have Another Rock Album Track as Good as Jimmy Eat World’s ‘Cautioners’?”
Bonnaroo, it seems, went off this year pretty much without gathering the attention from anybody in the blogosphere, and not many people in the world at large, either, for that matter. Now, the elephant in the room, here, would be that it’s already obvious that we’re living in a very precarious age, specifically speaking of … Read more“The Bonnaroo Factor”
“I dreamt I got muscular dystrophy and then vomited on my sweater, mang!”
It’s constant: this unflagging, maniacal stream of plaintive detritus. What do they CALL it? They call it music, never anything more specific or stylized, and another thing is that they speak with this bizarre sense of authority when vouching for its merit. It’s like they stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night [1]. And … Read more“It’s Hard Not to Fall for a Woman Whose Pandora Station Toggles to ‘Zip-Lock’ by Lit”