In Memory Of Dusty Hill

ZZ Top are a part of my DNA. I was spoon fed via Pioneer turntable and box speakers a steady dose of Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, and ZZ Top in my formative years. I was a classic rock toddler, which at the time it was the new shit. Classic rock in the mid-70s was Buddy Holly, […]

Perspective

A guy died at work yesterday. I didn’t know him. He was a contract worker who had only been at our facility for a couple of weeks. He was on the shop floor running one of the CMM machines. I barely know a handful of machinists, and ones I’ve worked with(generally speaking) for the last […]

EVH 1955-2020

Everyone has their “entry” Van Halen album, at least those of us that grew up in the late-70s and 80s. Oddly enough it wasn’t an older brother or that dude at the record shop that always looked tired and smelled like incense that got me into Van Halen at the age of 5. It was […]

In Memory Of Leon Redbone

Leon Redbone was one of those characters that seemed to have stepped out of an E.L. Doctorow novel, or an Our Gang comedy. Playing Tin Pan Alley shuffles and ragtime ballads on the guitar and whistling like a drunken bum with just a swig of whiskey left in his flask. Except instead of appearing out […]

Richard Swift : 1977-2018

Photo by Larry Crane I won’t lay it on thick here, as I can’t say I’m a longtime fan of Richard Swift’s work. What I will say is that as a producer, Richard Swift produced three of the best sounding indie records in the last 10 years. His work with Damien Jurado on albums Maraqopa, […]

R.I.P. Chris Cornell : Long Live That Voice

Truth be told I haven’t followed Chris Cornell’s music career since that first Audioslave album. Call it moving forward with ones life or just not really being into what he’d been doing since “Show Me How To Live” burned into my brain. But that’s not to say he didn’t make a HUGE impression on the […]

A Song For All Of Us

Election week was a bit rough. Not only did we end up electing in, well, you know who, but we lost Leonard Cohen. A guy that I never truly explored but felt his reverberations through Jeff Buckley and his breathtaking cover of “Hallelujah”. Of course, I loved “Everybody Knows”, “If It Be Your Will”, “Suzanne”, […]

Death, You Cantankerous Letch

When you live in times like these it’s hard not to think about ones fate, and ultimately death. Sometimes it barely cracks the surface with me, but there are some days when those thoughts of the morbid and dark are around every corner. Maybe I’ll bite it going to work. Or maybe I’ll choke on […]

Judy

Judy was my mother-in-law. Judy died on May 19th, 2014 in her apartment from complications due to alcoholism and subsequently Cirrhosis of the liver. It was the solitary life for her because that’s what her alcoholism required. She was alone most of the time I’d known her, which was 23 years when she died. When […]

R.I.P., Christopher Tracy

I begrudgingly became a Prince fan. Why? Well, when you’ve got a best pal that listens only to Prince and you’re hanging out with him nearly every weekend it’s inevitable that the “Purple One” is going to rub off on you. Prior to meeting this best pal in the third grade I can remember hearing […]