Alone? Hell, yeah, I feel alone. I’ve come into this cafe wearing flannel every day for the last three weeks. And I always stare at that brunette barista over there, who’s continually polishing the kettles, she never even turns her head around. Her? Yeah, she’s tattooed, too. Real tortured. I once tried to read her … Read more“Dolby’s Top 100 Albums of the 1990s”
10 Toad the Wet Sprocket – “P.S.” . I am stockpiling hated bands. I once heard this dude in the grocery store, this dude I was working with, say he hated the song “Walk on the Ocean,” when it came on. Who the fu** would say this, who would fu** with Toad the Wet Sprocket? … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Guitar Tones of All Time”
It’s funny: sometimes these things just jibe in lockstep like this. I’m from northern Indiana, and most of my extended family is from Michigan, where yes, you can see Confederate flags flying upon certain edifices and… mobile edifices. I started thinking of southern rock as a sort of subtle genus, though, for some reason, and … Read more“Southern Rock Mix”
.. 10 David Essex . It’s music. You can do whatever you want. But what does it all MEAN? These problems were clearly at the forefront of David Essex’ mind in 1973, when he hired Jeff Wayne to initiate the spellbinding, self-defeating mania of Rock on, and said album’s famous titled track. With production nods … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 ‘Random Musicians’ of All Time”
So you need Frank Zappa in your life like you need a hole in your head or a third tit. You told Grant on the phone, he told me. I guess that would explain his absence from Pitchfork lists, and the general antipathy toward him surrounding clusters of upwardly mobiles. The question is, do you … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Frank Zappa Songs”
Ya know it’s funny, I got a weird feeling while I was compiling this list in honor of Pearl Jam’s 1,000th concert: it feels strange to do a list just on them. Because they are SUCH a band of the community. They are a group of people, for the people. They stuck up for working … Read more“Dolby’s Top 50 Pearl Jam Songs”
This U2 biography came out a couple years ago, to surprisingly little notoriety, or acclaim. I even read The New Yorker with decent regularity, and I didn’t see any mention of it in there. Anyway, it’s made for a fairly enjoyable read, and it definitely dispels certain myths a lot of people would feel going … Read more“U2 / The Definitive Biography: A Quotation Compendium”
* “Open call to a prison architect Send me all your prints A.S.A.P. Stack the walls such that I cannot breathe Man is bleedin’ forever Bleedin’ forever they come down to blister the scene” – Pavement . 10 “Half a Canyon” (Wowee Zowee) 9 “Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era” (Slanted and Enchanted) 8 “We … Read more“Dolby’s Top 10 Pavement Songs”
Oh, excuse me. Sorry, I got a little tied up. I was just beating the sh** out of a radio behind my house, Office Space style, like they do to that copy machine. I hate it with a seething passion, see, as any reader of this blog knows. Why? Hell, it stole my heart. Motown … Read more“Dolby’s Top 100 Radio Singles of All Time”
Well, Radiohead, you ain’t gotta tell me twice… you put out a studio album where the last song is recycled from your live album, and it sucked anyway, I’m gonna turn my head in the Julia Holter/Dandy Warhols direction of the proceedings. Well, sh**, all you did was invent your own sovereign, world-shifting musical style, … Read more“A Brief List of Bands Which Have Emulated Radiohead in the Last 20 Years with Something Approaching the General Module of Success”