I Think I’ve Become ‘Bad John’

I’ve been at my current employer now for almost 24 years. My first day was September 27, 1999. It started in the HR office where I sat and learned about company policy; attendance, vacation time, sick leave, and just general history of the company. Those in that room were myself, the HR specialist, and one […]

Depeche Mode : Memento Mori

Depeche Mode, after 40 years as a band, have earned the title of Elder Statesmen of Synth Pop. The UK alternative rock band has built a musical dynasty, starting in 1981 with their debut album Speak & Spell. With each successive album the band honed their sound and their style to a fine doomed romantic […]

Edena Gardens : Live Momentum

Live albums have been a staple of late night spins since the dawn of the bean bag chair. Basements across the globe set up with decent hi-fi stereos, Hendrix wall tapestries, and a mellow haze in the air have welcomed sleepy-eyed listeners in their warm yet dank embrace. Cheap Trick’s Live At Budokon, KISS’ Alive, […]

Sermons By The Devil : Pro-Life

I’ve always been a bit perplexed when it came to the pro-life movement. Growing up in the Midwest(aka, the Corn Belt) I’ve had a firsthand view of its insidious sincerity. Sure, saving the unborn children; making human walls of screaming, shrieking Christians in front of Planned Parenthoods, medical clinics, and OBGYNs calling cowering, scared women […]

Yves Tumor : Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)

Yves Tumor was one of those names I’d heard in passing over the last few years, but truth be told never made it to my ears. I thought maybe it was the name of a rapper, or some strange avante garde pop artist like Arca. Turns out I was wrong and sort of in the […]

Unknown Mortal Orchestra : V

Ruban Nielson arrived on the indie music scene back in 2010 with his Unknown Mortal Orchestra project in an air of mystery. This lo-fi project made songs that sounded as if they’d been locked in a storage locker for 40 years; musty, muffled tracks that were equally built for grooving and for dropping out. Garage […]

Intermittently Awful…Marginally Terrible

The signs were there earlier in the week. I had a low-grade fever of 99.3 last Sunday and felt pretty run down, but the fever went away by late afternoon. Then on Wednesday I started having body aches, chills, and my head felt like it was on fire. I took some pain reliever, laid on […]

Ivan The Tolerable Quartet’s ‘Toft House Session’ Out 3/31; Zone Out To “Mothra II”

Oli Heffernan, aka Ivan The Tolerable, makes the kind of drone-heavy psychedelic jams that would be just at home playing in your ears on one hell of an acid trip as they would soundtracking a post-apocalyptic road trip. The songs hang in the air like fog over daybreak waters, or wavering smoke rising off burning […]

Christmas, 1988 : The Stockin’ Was Rockin’

Christmas, 1988. I was a newly-minted 15-year old, in the prime of a dorky and awkward teenage existence. I didn’t play sports, got bi-weekly allergy shots, had a mere handful of friends(the kind you spend lots of time with, not the kind you bide your time with in Algebra or English Comp), and spent most […]

Wayne Shorter 1933-2023

It’s been nearly two weeks now since the great and legendary jazz saxophonist Wayne Shorter passed away at 89-years old. I hadn’t yet sat down to write something about the man I consider to be one of the greatest jazz saxophonists and composers to ever blow a note. Why? Well, Mr. Shorter passed away on […]