“The Tao of Uncle Kracker”
* tao: The art or skill of doing something in harmony with the essential nature of the thing [1]. Tao, the way I understand it, pronounced “Dow,” like the Dow Jones Industrial Average, is a tenet, or bi-product, perhaps, of Zen Buddhism. Roughly, it involves keeping the big picture of the greater good in mind, […]
“At Some Point During The Very Best of Cream the Outside World Ceased to Exist”
It’s a shame but when I’m at work, usually, I’m trapped in something resembling a four-bar-phrase Cask of Amontillado, with my sous chef hogging the music. And if it were a believable story, I’d gladly divulge to you the music he regularly puts on. Suffice it to say, anyway, that when I get my chance […]
“A Nod in Favor of Desolation in Popular Music Lyrics”
The other night I was in the bar and this band was just slugging through pretty much all of my least favorite songs: “Come and Get Your Love”; “Take on Me” and this terrible new pop song that goes “We’re up all night to get lucky.” And I don’t mean to sound misogynistic but this […]
“Wikipedia’s page on Tiny Music… Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop Actually Has a Dual ‘Critical Reception’ Section on Account of the Profuse Psychosis Active within Humanity”
Sometimes the inmates run the asylum and it’s just amazing to me that Stone Temple Pilots’ “Lady Picture Show” never became a defining anthem of American society. The song is absolutely, terrifically great, with a series of elaborate, responsive melodies governing the verse, and a brilliant, awesomely pliable chorus that pares itself down to a […]
“DD Review: Weird Nightmare – Weird Nightmare.”
Score: 8.5/10 This is kind of a case of cordiality born out of an axe to grind, I have to admit. I’d been on the covert mission of exposing Sub Pop as an artistically vacuous enterprise, completely ready to write them off (and do so of all recorded music, in the process), when I came […]
“A Terse but Complete History of My Weed-Smoking Habits (I Promise I Have a Point)”
I was a pretty big TV junkie in the ’90s and one of the shows I’d catch, sometimes, was called Blossom. The reason I mention this show, which was generally a pretty critically acclaimed sit com conceived in the spirit of The Brady Bunch but more raunch, is that, in one of the episodes, one […]
“Dolby’s Power 100 — Grunge/Spring 2022”
100 Radiohead – “Just” 99 The Smashing Pumpkins – “Bodies” 98 Mudhoney – “Blinding Sun” 97 Bush – “Glycerine” 96 The U-Men – “Gila” 95 Rapeman – “Kim Gordon’s Panties” 94 Jane’s Addiction – “Had a Dad” 93 Helmet – “Street Crab” 92 Alice in Chains – “Over Now” 91 Mudhoney – “When in Rome” […]