Wait a minute. When I was a younger-young person, I jeered at old timers who, cool enough to recognize, say, The Who, for what they were in their heyday, would still drool over embarrassing garbage like”Eminence Front” like it was “The Who Sells Out” reborn. So is this me with the three new Sonic Youth […]

Like some people who shouldn’t have a kid, some shouldn’t have a blog. And I wonder if one could concoct a formula for just the exact type of indie rock a computer-savvy webber blogger 20-30 something would be attracted to, because I’m muttering ‘of course’ under my breath when the blog-o-the-moment blabs holymoly about Arctic […]

Every blog has that special day where, in their retarded delusions of a readership, they get thematic. Here’s my pathetic entry into that new and needless genre: Lost 80s Day. The intention: there’s an indie rock canon, and then there’s the really lost stuff, the quality influences bound to be rediscovered by hipsters any second […]

Beyotchfork gives Calexico’s new album an 8.1 today, but tellingly leaves it off their ‘recommended’ list, which should clue you into the bullshit of the 8.1 istelf. I’d give it a 6.5, max. If I was feeling generous, I’d say the 8.1 is Beyotchfreak’s makeup call for having slept on Calexico’s glorious early years, but […]

Business first: stop loving Bright Eyes. Oberst doesn’t self-edit, leaving a knee-high lake of horseshit blocking us from his one or two nuggets per double album. The Submarines will be getting notice because Blake Hazard is reportedly F. Scott Fitgerald’s great-grandaughter. But from the sound of the music, it seems the gene pool has been […]

John Convertino of Calexico is what’s known as an ‘expressive’ drummer. Which is another way of saying he’s great. Put him behind any solid song, and you’ve got a fleshed out arrangement almost immediately. He’s wonderful on the slow burners, keeping the snare involved, and when the pace quickens to 4/4 he still knows it’s […]

Blogs. Diary turned inside-out. Diarydrome. It’s a vessel that even Melville would have shunned. And it’s also the Death of the Zine, right here in code, not to mention the promise of the internet spread thin into millions of aficionados, none of them versed in much more than what they like, or who they are. […]

If I’m wearing headphones and reading a book on the subway, at least have the courtesy to not be annoyed when I answer “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you” after you ask me directions. About 47 other people were just standing there, no music, no book, but you pick me, and then you want details […]

There’s a prevailing stupidity among some mainstream music critics that a new album by a previously respectable artist can be considered a ‘comeback’ or a ‘masterpiece,’ when in reality it’s only their first album in a long time that didn’t simply suck. See: Bob Dylan’s last two, Neil Young’s latest, Springsteen’s last two, the new […]

Derelict! Neglector! But I have excuses: Jury Duty: Don’t even try to tell a judge and prosecutor that you would not convict someone of a drug felony, after trial, because you know incarceration is a failed solution to non-violent crimes. It does get you thrown off a jury, that’s for sure, but man, were they […]