Killer beats, huge hype, and failure to follow through.
music writing
Shelved: Yoko Ono
On Yoko Ono’s 1974 album “A Story,” and stepping out from behind the ever-present shadow of John Lennon.
Shelved: Pink Floyd’s Household Objects
On Syd Barrett’s time with Pink Floyd and making an album with household objects and found sounds.
Cryin’, Dyin’, or Goin’ Somewhere: A Country Music Reading List
Although the sound of the music has changed, country’s themes have endured.
Removing Beethoven’s Wig: A Classical Music Reading List
Classical music is more than dead Europeans in wigs, starched collars, and stuffy concert halls.
What classical music is, where it’s going, and what it still can be.
Tangled Up in Bob Stories: A Dylan Reading List
Few musicians have generated as much music and as much study as this Nobel Prize winning singer-songwriter. Dylanology will last hundreds of years.
Shelved: The Misfits’ 12 Hits From Hell
For a bunch of rock ‘n’ rollers creating the horror punk genre, the Misfits sure were sensitive.
Funk Lessons in Sonic Solitude
“Joi’s recorded performances embodied all the funkiness my little soul had been waiting for.”
On Watching Boys Play Music
“With a drink in my hand and earplugs responsibly in place, I’m very aware that I’ve spent more than half my life essentially standing in the same spot: off to one side of the stage (close but not too close), eyes forward, shifting weight from foot to foot.”
Shout Out to Myspace
The site that revolutionized how people released and listened to music has died multiple deaths since its 2003 debut, but it finally gets the eulogy it deserves.