80. Drive-By Truckers – Decoration Day [New West] Decoration Day came on the heels of 2001’s Southern Rock Opera, a loose concept album about growing up in the shadows of Lynyrd Skynyrd, George Wallace, and “the duality of the Southern thing.” It… Read More
“I think self-depreciation is important in music; there is such an art to saying something really serious in a humorous way. I think Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) nailed this, along with people like Morrissey and Elliot Smith. To me, even the… Read More
Matt Sharp, frontman, songwriter, and only permanent member of the Rentals, doesn’t release music very often. Q36 is the band’s fourth album over 25 years of existence, and first since 2014’s Lost in Alphaville. It bears some of the hallmarks… Read More
In 2013 and 2015, drummer/composer/arranger John Hollenbeck released Songs I Like a Lot and Songs We Like a Lot, collaborations with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band and singers Kate McGarry and Theo Bleckmann. He mainly reworked relatively popular songs from… Read More
Of all the versions of “I Can See Clearly Now” that have been circulating since Johnny Nash died on 6 October, my favorite is the one from 1973, when Nash performed the song on the late-night variety show The Midnight… Read More
Our previous installment of Dread Reckoning, “Horrors in the Closet: A Closet Full of Monsters” describes how, within the context of horror culture, the construction of non-heteronormative sexual identities exhibits a telling duality. That is; because of the impurity and… Read More
“The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.” —William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890) Philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) was interested in the epistemological question… Read More
“The baby, assailed by eyes, ears, nose, skin, and entrails at once, feels it all as one great blooming, buzzing confusion.” —William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890) Philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) was interested in the epistemological question… Read More
100. Nickel Creek – Why Should the Fire Die? [Sugar Hill] Why Should the Fire Die? is both the title of Nickel Creek’s best 2000’s record and very likely the question many fans asked themselves when, following the release of the album,… Read More
Schneider, the Composer Schneider’s status as a highly acclaimed jazz composer has few true parallels in creative music. Unlike the huge majority of jazz composers—Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Wayne Shorter, say—her acclaim wasn’t preceded or accompanied by her success… Read More