Spitball Army

“If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere.”

So goes the line from the well-worn song “New York, New York.” And, apparently, the inverse rule applies, as well. The last of the giant music retail stores in New York City shuttered completely yesterday, according to this morning’s New York Times.

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Patterson Hood will release Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) on 23 June 2009 on Ruth St. Records. The second solo record from the leader of the Drive-By Truckers follows 2004’s Killers and Stars.

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BJ posts a status update: BJ doesn’t want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.

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When I first heard “Alicia Ross,” my initial impulse was to play it over again immediately.  I did.  Then I played it again.  The narrative voice in the lyrics was so strong that I wondered if it was perhaps based on a true story.  A quick googling of “Alicia+Ross” gave me a series of websites, including […]

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Today’s kernel of universal wisdom comes courtesy of Ry Cooder.

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From the pantheon of favorite songs, sorted by topic area.

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Rain;
The library;
The Dexateens’ Singlewide

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I either (1) snatched the handbill off of a counter somewhere on or near the campus, (2) took it down off a wall, (3) she (my sister, not Linda) scored it for me, or (4) I just “appropriated” it. I had the “hots” for Linda beginning around this time and on through into college, and it was no secret, so I am putting my money on Number 3.

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You probably zoomed over to read this post because you thought I had started a new career as a stalker of musicians. If that is the case, you would be WRONG.

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On a sunny Friday in January 1985, I sketched this while sitting on the steps of the State House in Boston. There must have been something of a chill in the air, judging by the woman’s coat. The bas-relief sculpture on the right, completed in 1897, was created by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, an Irish-born American sculptor.

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