“Is it Possible We’ve All Been Sleeping on Secret Machines?”

To be honest, I seem to remember there being a pretty decent amount of hype surrounding the 2006 release of Secret Machines’ second album, Ten Silver Drops. The album gathered a three-and-a-half-star review in Rolling Stone (which I think they’d automatically give to any album provided it were indie) and the thought of it seeing … Read more“Is it Possible We’ve All Been Sleeping on Secret Machines?”

“A Call for The Dismemberment Plan to Revive Vinyl Rock”

I’ve mostly been listening to my vinyl records at night, lately, and the reason has to do with them being generally placid, mostly encompassing music recorded before 1980. Punk rock came along, of course, in the 1970s, and is surely enjoying a resurgence, at least around where I live, among girls in their 20s, in … Read more“A Call for The Dismemberment Plan to Revive Vinyl Rock”

“Indie Rock Fires Rekindle in Chicago with Mer’s Musical Showcase”

It’s a pretty hard thing to ignore — things just aren’t like they were in the 1990s, or even the 2000s, in terms of grassroots music scenes, all across the nation. Chicago is a great measuring stick for this. I can remember, that is, a time when the outdoor ampitheatre in Tinley Park (which I … Read more“Indie Rock Fires Rekindle in Chicago with Mer’s Musical Showcase”

“Pontificating on Whether the Soul Coughing Renditions Would Work as Pop-Punk Versions”

Let me please preface this post by saying I’m a huge Soul Coughing fan and have the utmost respect for their artistic contributions in the 1990s. Their catalogue is a distinct force with, in tow, an incredible variety, dynamic and multitude of kinds of musical influences feeding its prowess. I am today dispatching from somewhat … Read more“Pontificating on Whether the Soul Coughing Renditions Would Work as Pop-Punk Versions”

“On the Potential Extent to Which The Libertines Have ‘Become Blur’ with All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade.”

In general, most of the opinions of Blur have been pretty positive, in America, in the last 20 years, matters perhaps getting a bit murky circa 2023/2024 with their questionable festival live show and band/audience relationship, centralized at Coachella and reported copiously by NME. Interestingly, upon its release, The Ballad of Darren, an album whose … Read more“On the Potential Extent to Which The Libertines Have ‘Become Blur’ with All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade.”

“How Epoch Might Have Informed the de facto Emotional Authenticity of ‘Jambi’”

There’s a classic knock against Fiona Apple that she’ll take any little relationship hookup and blow it up into an astronomical disaster, provided it makes good copy in her lyrics. Well, as a TOOL fan, I’d be hypocritical to accuse her of that and forgive the penchant of Maynard James Keenan of treating a “Beastie … Read more“How Epoch Might Have Informed the de facto Emotional Authenticity of ‘Jambi’”

“Led Zeppelin’s ‘Four Sticks’ as Recorded Proof That Rock Songs Shouldn’t Be ‘about’ Anything”

To be honest, I haven’t really looked at pitchfork.com in a while, finding a slight problem, mind you, with their tautologically identical paragraph lengths, for one thing. It’s like, really, Pitchfork, all your paragraphs are the exact same length, and stuff?  I mean, it doesn’t matter, I guess. Sometimes all the paragraphs on your entire … Read more“Led Zeppelin’s ‘Four Sticks’ as Recorded Proof That Rock Songs Shouldn’t Be ‘about’ Anything”

“An Old Curmudgeon Pontificating on Where Taylor Swift Would Stack up in the ’90s in Terms of Popularity”

Now, believe me, it was never my intention to write a post about Taylor Swift. I did muster out one default-love-poem to her circa 2015, during an unusually horny phase of mine, kind of as a way of positing myself as a found art object for whom all the meaning in life has gone.  I … Read more“An Old Curmudgeon Pontificating on Where Taylor Swift Would Stack up in the ’90s in Terms of Popularity”