Purple Links
Man, were there some great Prince-related articles over the past week. Here are some of my favorites. Joe Posnanski used Prince’s death as an excuse to look back on his epic Super Bowl halftime show. Although the Colts won that night, my biggest memories of the evening are Prince’s performance and how cold it was that night when I took…
Album Review: Painting Of A Panic Attack
We all thought that I might change as I got older “Wish I Was Sober” – Frightened Rabbit Every band that survives its lean, early days and captures some measure of public attention and success must grapple with the challenges of how to keep the magic going as they move into their musical middle age. Success opens new doors, and…
I’ve always secretly made fun of those folks who get all emotional when a public figure dies. No matter what effect their work had on your life, I didn’t understand how an actor or singer or whoever dying would cause you to show public grief. I think I understand those people a little more today. Yesterday sadness for Prince’s death…
Damn It All
I was minutes away from posting an album review when the news about Prince dying hit. What a terrible day. I admired Bowie, but he was hardly vital to me growing up. When he died I wondered what aging rocker death would have the biggest impact on me. It would be sad when McCartney and Ringo died. Plant and Page,…
Friday Playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/224aiwksicafjldlua6nnpo4y/playlist/6x2aonwNQhz7CaXy2s9qr0 “The Boy In the Bubble” – Paul Simon. I acknowledge Simon’s place in music history, but his songs never really connected with me. They were my parents’ generation’s songs, not mine. This is the one exception. I’ve always loved it and crank it up any time I hear it, as I did earlier this week on SiriusXM’s The…
Friday Vid
“God’s Eyes” – Spookyland Digging this song a lot right now. There’s a certain mid–90s vibe to it, from that final blast of the alt rock revolution before everything became derivative and poppy. From the first word, you can tell these lads are Aussies.
Musical Interlude
Some words about music. I’m wrapping up my first week of a rather grand experiment: avoiding iTunes/Apple Music and using Spotify in their place. I cancelled my subscription to the now defunct Rdio streaming service and went all-in with Apple Music as soon as it went live back in June. While Apple Music wasn’t perfect, I liked how it was…
Friday Vid(s)
Touching on some of my favorite music of the new year today. “Quiet Americans” – Shearwater First, from my favorite album of the year so far, this very mid–80s Bowie-like track from Shearwater. Shearwater is a band that has slowly grown on me over their career. They began as a side project for two members of Okkervil River, another band…
Friday Vid
“Black Metallic” – Catherine Wheel Catherine Wheel is one of those great, lost bands that seem to both define a certain time and still hold up well. Being British, with droney guitars as their dominant sound, they are generally considered part pf the shoegaze movement. But their sound transcended that genre. Of their five studio albums, two are fantastic (Ferment…
Friday Vid
https://youtu.be/i7nXvOTqyCY “Bad Art & Weirdo Ideas” – Beach Slang This is the first great New Music Friday of 2016. The first two Fridays of the month were rather slow, lacking both a large number of new releases and a bunch of eagerly awaited albums. But this week there are three new albums I’ve been looking forward to. And based on…