Spitball Army

As expected, the record made a multitude of Best of 2007 lists, which are kinda hard to avoid this time of year. Not that I make an effort to avoid them – I have a perverse fascination with lists, anyway, and to deride them would make me a hypocrite when I post mine in a couple of days.

[Read more →]

It is charming, quirky, sung not entirely in tune, and contains the phrase “shook a little turd out of the bottom of your pants.” How many songs can claim that?

[Read more →]

Every year I look forward to watching the broadcast of this annual event, then do a Homer Simpson DOH! when I hear about it the day after it aired. Not that it should be difficult to catch – the show traditionally airs during the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. But my brain gets wiped clean after the Christmas retail season, and the week after is spent stumbling along, trying to remember my name and where I put the car keys.

[Read more →]

So it was no surprise to see his recent article in Wired magazine, entitled “David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists – and Megastars,” in which he attempts to simplify the ridiculously complicated new world of music production and dissemination.

[Read more →]

Daniel Tashian, a musician I admire, posted this new Christmas song on his website yesterday.

[Read more →]

Philip Glass performing at Change Your Mind Day in Central Park in NYC (1999)

[Read more →]

This evening, after finally locking the doors, we were cleaning up with the store iPod playing in shuffle mode (yes, we use an mp3 player at a CD store…what of it?! 23,191 songs, by the way), when this came on:

[Read more →]

Did I say how rabidly anxious I am to see I’m Not There? I am. Anxious. And rabidly so.

[Read more →]

Fogelberg, who was ridiculously successful during a nearly twenty-year period when his hyper-romantic ballads were in constant rotation on radio stations throughout the nation, was frequently derided for being either (a) sappy, (b) wimpy, or (c) sappy and wimpy.

[Read more →]

The last two months have been barren of much new and exciting music, unless your idea of new and exciting music includes the kind of ultra-commercial product that tends to win Grammy Awards these days. There seems to be plenty of that – no, thank you. What I’m hungry for is music with ideas. Imagine my happy surprise, then, to find out that today heralds the release of a brand new album from musician/producer Daniel Lanois.

[Read more →]