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…
Monday Vid
Among the various Breaking News bulletins on my phone when I woke this morning was the notification of David Bowie’s death. I think I’m like a lot of people of my generation: not a huge Bowie fan – I really didn’t know who he was until his 1983 album Let’s Dance, which was the poppiest, most mainstream of his career…
Friday Vid
“Listen Like Thieves” – INXS Already Friday of the first full week of 2016. Hard to believe we have just 51 weeks left before 2017. Which means only 50 weeks of shopping until Christmas. Better get a move on! If my records are accurate, I’ve never shared an INXS track in the Friday Vids series. Which seems like a terrible…
Friday Vid(s)
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – Darlene Love With no more Late Night/Late Show with David Letterman, that means no more Ms. Love making her annual appearance to belt out the greatest Christmas song ever. So here’s a look back at her first appearance on his show in 1986, complete with a Spuds McKenzie commercial and a quick sit-down with…
Favorite Songs of 2015
So I suppose I should finally do this. I won’t say this was the toughest time I’ve ever had putting a list together. While some years the songs kind of sort themselves, there have been plenty of Decembers when I’m still trying to figure out what to include and in what order right up until I made my list public.…
Friday Vid
The Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby Christmas Special, 1957 Ol’ blue eyes. The Chairman of the Board. Frank Sinatra was born 100 years ago tomorrow. I know a few of my friends will be gathering in the suburbs of Kansas City to celebrate the occasion. I will be here in Indy, listening to some of Frank’s best Christmas songs, drinking…
Year In Music Preview
I’ve been struggling with my Music Favorites lists this year. Where I normally love sifting through everything I’ve purchased, streamed, and downloaded over the past year to put together my favorite songs and albums lists, this year it’s been a bit of a chore. My first inclination is to say that is because this has not been a particularly good…