But really, what is a musician’s voice if not distinctive? Isn’t that… good? Entire pieces have been written about the voices of Bob Dylan and Tom Waits, so American and vital and wise in their manly scratchiness, like unshaved bristle and whiskey and dirt. Man voice make music good. Woman voice music bad: Too high. […]
Aaron Gilbreath
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
If You Want to Be Productive, You Have to Rest
In a recent thought-provoking review of research on the default mode network, Mary Helen Immordino-Yang of the University of Southern California and her co-authors argue that when we are resting the brain is anything but idle and that, far from being purposeless or unproductive, downtime is in fact essential to mental processes that affirm our […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The High School Where Poetry Covers the Walls
Where does musical genius come from? A more reasonable question to ask might be: where did Bob Dylan come from? To find out, music writer Greil Marcus visited Hibbing High School in northern Minnesota, the school where Dylan graduated, and whose legend centers around the school’s striking architecture, lavish decoration and creative influence. Originally printed in 2007 […]
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How Burger King Generates Buzz on a Budget
Burger King likes being edgy, Schwan says, and it has proved that it doesn’t mind doing things that might make other brands blush. In August, as the company pushed a new spicy version of its chicken fries—a cult favorite the chain returned to the menu after a flood of social media requests—it tweeted a picture […]
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The Wild Times of Billy Idol
Before there was pop-punk, there was Billy Idol. More than any other artist of his era, the man born William Broad brought the style and attitude of punk rock into the American mainstream, via massive hits including “White Wedding” and “Rebel Yell.” For this, he was both celebrated and vilified. Fans adored Idol’s bad-boy image […]
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Do Music Biographies Really Enhance Our Musical Experience?
If [Rhiannon] Giddens were to tell us in a memoir that she’d been thinking about her own child when she sang, it would make the line a poignant narrative moment. But really, what would that reveal that we don’t know from her performance? It might risk drowning out other information we already have: Michael Brown’s […]
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I’d Like My Hornet Larvae Extra Crispy, Please
Cricket flour is here, now what do we do with it? In Lucky Peach magazine, Michael Snyder writes about the many ways people in the Indian state of Nagaland cook their local insects. Your garden species will differ, but Snyder’s article, paired with Jennifer Billock’s “Are Insects the Future of Food?,” provides practical food for thought for a planet whose […]
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Midwesterners Do Things Differently in the Driftless
Although it felt better to raise cattle that weren’t drugged up, economically it was hard to rationalize the decision. Sales barns in the Midwest feed into the industrial agricultural system and make no distinction between grass-fed beef and doped up beef. A farmer just pulls his trailer up to the sales barn, drops the cattle […]
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The Music Teacher That Changed Your Life
Aviya Kushner writes about the impact Chopin had on her life.
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When Coltrane Explored New Terrain in the Pacific Northwest
In the Seattle Weekly, Steve Griggs writes about John Coltrane’s first and only performances in Seattle, at the 225-seat Penthouse club, in 1965. Griggs provides a snapshot of the saxophonist’s life following his groundbreaking album A Love Supreme, during a period of artistic transition. Coltrane was usually in transition. He was expanding his sound again in […]