Chad Harbach’s Art of Fielding via My Laziness. Overused poetic trope, I know, but for book reviews? Maybe novel. 1.When amazing-hitting infielders lose their ability to throw to first, they become outfielders. See: Chuck Knoblauch, Gary Sheffield, etc. The book gives no reason why this change isn’t made. Henry Skrimshander is the best hitter on the team. […]

Last week: big for indie music geeks. And the winner is: Deerhoof – “Breakup Songs.” Short and to the boogie-woogie-point, the point being your butt. Runner-ups:Cat Power’s “Sun.” I saw Chan Marshall in concert in 1997, and I saw her on the street last year near my home. Better-looking through chemistry. Better albums? Maybe. “Sun” […]

Heard myself some Arcade Fire today, and realized I hadn’t listened to them much since 2006 because they make music that lends drama to those young lives that lack any real drama of their own. And now I’m too old for drama. Thus: the music of people giving up. Like Nico’s Chelsea Girl, or any Hank […]

Ariel Pink first flashed across my radar maybe in 2003? A video on the defunct New York Noise (a tear falls): low budget, washed images of a live band, as inchoate as their impressionistic song, less a tune than pulses of noise, as if the Partridge Family had been embedded in a warped, chip-damaged Atari 2600 […]

By everything, I didn’t also mean writing. Forgive me, oh blog. My separately occurring lows (parental death, physical injury, cyclical thinking requiring chemical adjustment, etc) outnumbered my highs in 2011 and 2012. But whatever happens transforms into never-again. How about that?  The music never left. There were taste changes. There were hate changes. New loves. […]

http://youtube.com/v/NiLe7D1qWSc #3 in Bands I miss Most from the 90s: The Mummies. “This next one goes out to fuckin’ me” Maybe the best cover song of the 90s. Good freakin’ God I miss the Mummies. They get my vote for the greatest song title ever: “Sooprize Package for Mr. Mineo!”

http://youtube.com/v/aBaB4bjfYGQ #4 in the “Bands I Miss Most from the 90s”While all you neu-shoegazers were still wearing Garanimals, I was scooping up Skywave seven inches without reading the price tag. Ackerman went on to help form A Place to Bury Strangers, which is alright, I guess, but Skywave had the songs. “Don’t Say Slow” is […]

http://youtube.com/v/0EWJ9JrxU0g #5 in the “Bands/Artists I Miss Most from the 90s”Gang Starr might have dropped their debut in ’89 and a decent – actually excellent — album in 2003 (“Ownerz”), but they’re of and by the 90s. Most of their product still makes the likes of fitty, snoop, etc, sound like punks.I represent /set up […]

http://youtube.com/v/zs5kvCY22uc #6 in my “Bands/Artists from the 90s Whom I Miss Most” Known widely for their theme (“Having an Average Weekend”) and incidental music for the Kids in the Hall show, SMOASP made three of the best – maybe the best ever — albums of surf-rock. And I’m counting the Ventures, Dick Dale, and the […]

http://youtube.com/v/aSZKlAAUfR8 #7 in my “Bands/Artists from the 90s Whom I Miss Most” Did the Whigs make it out of the 90s? If they did, I decree it false. “Up In It” ought to be played in full at the next ATP. Marcy Mays (Scrawl! I miss thee also!) breaks my heart anew with this one […]