“Baby it’s the guitar man”

I recently switched out pickups in my Squier Vintage Modified Mustang. They weren’t the stock pickups, mind you. They were some random Seymour Duncan pickups I pulled out of my very first guitar, a 1986 Fender Squier Stratocaster I received for my 14th birthday. Oh, what a great birthday that was. I’d been playing guitar […]

Marine Eyes : To Belong

The eloquent, hushed sound world of Cynthia Bernard, aka Marine Eyes, is one of mystery and ethereal soundscapes. Combining heavily-effected guitar, subtle synthesizers, and her own layered vocals, Bernard creates records of dream-like beauty and crystalline visions. Her ambient recordings are not unlike stepping into another world, one built from a foundation of longing for […]

Dawn Chorus and the Infallible Sea : Reveries

Over the last couple of years I’ve started painting. Acrylics, canvas, and my imagination lay out some simple vision that sits in my head waiting to reveal itself through hand, brush, and color palate. The urge to communicate something from heart to head to canvas. This is not to say I find myself particularly good […]

Celebrating the Big 5-0 And Reflecting On 33 Years Of Ups, Downs, Inside Outs

I haven’t worked a full week in like three weeks. Took a mini-vacation mid-April, then the week after I took a Friday off before the big Joe Satriani concert, then this past weekend I took Friday off so my wife and I could celebrate her 50th birthday. Her birthday was actually Sunday the 28th, but […]

Modified Magic Release Self-Titled Debut May 3rd With Library of the Occult; Listen To “Curse of the Inverted Pyramid”

Coming out of the Garden State, New Jersey’s Modified Magic conjure images of fireside incantations and doom-heavy drives into the long, long night. Towing the line between Gothic rock, chugging metal, and the swirling psychedelia of artists like Goblin, Fabio Frizzi, as well as modern purveyors of horror score moods like Wolfmen of Mars, Brass […]

Cloud Nothings : Final Summer

Cloud Nothings arrived seemingly fully formed in 2011. The punk rock swagger, post-punk indifference, and songwriting prowess of singer/guitarist/songwriter Dylan Baldi was already in place. His bedroom solo project became an actual rock trio, and after releasing two albums written and performed by Baldi the trio recorded Attack On Memory with Steve Albini at Electrical […]

High on Fire : Cometh The Storm

It’s been over 5 years since the last High on Fire album, the Lemmy-worshipping Electric Messiah. Since then HoF singer/guitarist/resident conspiracy theorist Matt Pike has dealt with health issues, marriage, divorce, and a solo album titled Pike vs The Automaton. Pike vs The Automaton was essentially a High on Fire album, minus HoF bassist Jeff […]

Joe, Steve, Mom and Me

It was almost 34 years ago exactly that on a school night my older brother drove me and one of my best friends to the Embassy Theater in Fort Wayne to see Joe Satriani live. He was touring in support of the Flying In A Blue Dream album, and this was my first concert. My […]

The Jesus And Mary Chain : Glasgow Eyes

The Jesus and Mary Chain have been a staple of the shoegaze/noise-pop community for 40 years, releasing their debut Psychocandy in 1985. Blurry, fuzzy, and noisy, Psychocandy was unlike anything else out at the time. The next album to make such a sonic statement was My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless six years later. Though brothers William […]

Sermons By The Devil : Baptism Of Desire

Tom Hall has been making albums under the moniker Sermons By The Devil for a few years now. “Official House Band of the Apocalypse” is how he describes this all hardware electronic project, and I’d say that description is right on the money. I first came across Sermons back in 2021 with the album The […]