I’ll admit, this post is cursorily at best about music. I’m writing it really fast because I have to go to work in five minutes. When I moved back to Indiana from Colorado in 2010 I had only a vague idea of who the fu** Lady Gaga was. Everyone would always talk about her, like … Read more“Speed Post: Lady Gaga”
I suppose, in part, I’m writing to the millennials here, or the newer generation which seems to hold this staunchly utilitarian attitude to everything, being apparently completely oblivious to all right-brain satisfaction in life. This type would likely opine that it doesn’t matter whether you see a concert indoors or outdoors — the experience is … Read more“Why is Phish Playing So Many Indoor Shows This Summer?”
It all happened pretty fast, you’ve gotta admit. I remember the Pitchfork “Best New Music” placement for Wild Mountain Nation (2007), an album I could never seem to wrap my mind fully around. I recall how this energy bled into the succinct, near-perfect Furr (2008), and its killer energetic yin/yang of “Black River Killer” and … Read more“Wouldn’t it Be Spooky if Holy Smokes Future Jokes Ended up Being Blitzen Trapper’s Swan Song?”
So I dragged my 39-year-old a** back into McCormick’s tonight, for a TUESDAY night tilt, as I guess now they no longer do it on Mondays. I think I showed up at 9:45 or so, whereas the gig is supposed to start at 9, and the dude on stage was like doing Linkin Park karaoke, … Read more“A Synopsis of Open Mic at McCormick’s Coney Island, 07.25.2023”
Sometime earlier this week I was answering this Facebook post that was asking who was the best one-hit wonder in hip-hop history. Immediately, my mind turned to Skee-Lo, beholden of the 166-million-times-streamed “I Wish” exercise in undersized, underdog goof-off rhyming. Then, almost like a knee-jerk reaction, my mind relegated Skee-Lo, born Antoine Roundtree in Riverside, … Read more“On the Bright Side, We Only Slept on Skee-Lo for 28 Years”
Jim Morrison could never exist in our day and age today. We’re too expedited, logical, informed and suspicious of each other. To be an American visionary you have to get on a plane of the absurd. It is like actually getting on an airplane too in that the mind is transported to a totally ulterior … Read more“A Summer Haunt”
Now, mind you, Eric Clapton and Neil Young likely have something to say in this discussion. But in tipping over the typical cash cow of the purportedly unparalleled eliteness of Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged in New York as the no-brainer best unplugged album of all time, I’m actually going to look to 10,000 Maniacs, a band … Read more“Nirvana the Best Unplugged Album? Don’t Close the Polls Just Yet.”
There is no Wikipedia article on “Wharf Rat’; a song the Grateful Dead played 398 times between 1970 and 1995, the year Jerry Garcia passed away. Now, you might say, this is nothing peculiar as most people have never heard this song, which of course is true. It doesn’t appear on any of their studio … Read more“Dolby’s Rupees: Grateful Dead – ‘Wharf Rat’”
Now, it’s true: the world should hardly be held fully to blame for ignoring this 2011 career-capping Cars LP, as typically these late-era offerings from classic rock bands don’t really cure anything but insomnia. But, really, The Cars have always been a band that was underrated. In general, the first instinct is to pigeonhole them … Read more“Giving My Gen-Y Endorsement to The Cars’ Last Album, Move Like This.”
Ween is an alternative rock duo that started putting out albums in the early ’90s and, much to my delight, is still together and touring. They have not, however, released any new material since 2007 and La Cucaracha, the band’s ninth full-length LP, and I haven’t heard any talk of any writing or recording taking … Read more“Explicating My Consumer Guilt in Regards to Ween”