The only social networking site my brother has ever been on is Miitomo.
David Saavadra writes for El País about the rise and fall of the Stone Roses, a band many had pegged as the saviors of britpop at the end of the 80s.
Why did U.K. music critics place so much hope in them in the late 1980s? “Everything was exaggerated, because it was a time when the media was looking for someone to occupy the throne that the Smiths had left vacant,” notes music critic Carlos Pérez de Ziriza. “They had the merit of fusing, like no other group, the British pop heritage of the 1960s and its most exquisite melodic tradition with the new rhythms emanating from Manchester, favoured by the rise of rave culture, acid house, and that new lysergia that had driven the second summer of love, that of 1988.”
The Stone Roses, perhaps most notably, at this point, were a huge influence on Oasis, in style as well as substance. Of course, my link to the article isn’t anything less than encouragement to read it, but if you want to save a click, the downfall of the band can be mostly attributed to old-fashioned rockstar hubris.
Austin Kleon has a post on Dave “Big Dutch” Nally, whose deceptively amateurish art looks like a cross between something that would have been created by Daniel Johnston and the liner notes of a Pavement record.
I especially love the reference to Ezra Jack Keats' exquisite children’s book The Snowy Day (bottom left).
A little quiet storm feels perfect for this Saturday morning after a busy week.
I disclosed my most fondest Christmas wish list item to my lady friend last night — a FiiO DM13 portable CD player. She laughed at me. You want a discman for Christmas?
How can I explain my love of single-purpose devices and high-fidelity to someone who lives on their iPad and sees no problem with lossy streaming music? I want something that doesn’t have a screen with which to focus on music and, for goodness’ sake, some time to part with my phone during the day.
Bluetooth codecs have progressed, but Apple hasn’t seen that as a priority in their annual device updates.1 Their hardware can’t even output the high-fidelity audio that you can stream from their Apple Music service. One could probably successfully argue that Apple is more of a mass-consumer device manufacturer now than the company that used to cater to creatives.
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Or even in their headphone updates. ↩︎
Non-standard Sunflower
Friday, November 15, 2024
The election is, whether mercifully or unmercifully, in the rearview mirror. Like some others, I want to turn my attention away from the day’s news, so closely coupled as it is with political events. Before I read about Kid Rock being appointed ambassador to the U.N., I mean to spend some time with my head in books. Standard Ebooks has inspired me by making the barrier to reading well-produced classics low and ebooks free to obtain.
Save, help, and protect us, O Virgin Theotokos.
My mom asked my brother where he gets his news. He listed WRAL (a local news channel/site), IGN, Kotaku and Nintendo Direct Mini. In the past, I may have scoffed at this. Now, I think he may be onto something.
On Dark Horses
Saturday, November 9, 2024
Recently, I had a conversation with a colleague about music. I had gone to see one of my direct reports' bands, and they were really genre-hopping. I told her about the experience and mentioned that they blended such far-flung musical styles as punk, hip-hop, and shoegaze. She said she loved shoegaze, but when I asked her if she was going to the Slowdive show, she confessed that she hadn’t heard of them. I was a bit shocked, since I would consider them just below My Bloody Valentine in the pantheon of shoegaze progenitors. I asked her what shoegaze bands she was into and she mentioned Emma Ruth Rundle, whom she described as metal/shoegaze.
Luke T. Harrington, echoing the end of Voltaire’s Candide, when writing about our current political equations.
That we can’t save the world until we all learn to tend our gardens?
I think my garden has grown a few weeds and I hope that I can tend to it.
Yvette Young - Always
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Upon discovering the new single from Yvette Young (via Instagram of all places), I was immediately reminded of Sophie And Peter Johnson. The breezy sophistipop certainly merits easy comparisons. Then I realized that Young did vocals for Brothertiger’s mesmerizing cover of Sophie and Peter Johnson’s “Torn Open.”
Triple Seven
Saturday, September 7, 2024
I had been reading a lot of buzz around the Indianapolis band, Wishy, and their seamless blend of shoegaze and indie pop lately. Their debut album Triple Seven was stashed in my queue for later listening. Thursday morning, I browsed through the bands playing in clubs downtown for the free Day Parties, a staple of the annual Hopscotch Music Festival. The schedule app revealed Wishy was playing at a fairly small venue later in the afternoon. I quickly cranked up the streaming and fast-tracked listening to Triple Seven with just enough time to garner an appreciation for the recording before my trek downtown to see them play.
Wishy stays true to their description: “Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music’s semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together.” When I shared this assessment with my son, he remarked that was how most indie bands today could be described. I’m wondering when my 18-yr.-old became so wizened and cynical, but I’m also not sure he’s wrong. For my part, the description reminded me of a band like Hotline TNT. Indeed, at the Wishy show, I spotted someone wearing a Hotline TNT shirt.
I’m eager to check out the Devo Tiny Desk Concert, which draws me in the same way the Cypress Hill one did. There is some incongruity there, and though it’s difficult to picture, it could turn out to be interesting (like Cypress Hill).
The new anti-toxicity feature on Bluesky that allows a user to detach their original post from a quote post is ingenious. I can’t believe no one has shipped anything like this until now. In hindsight, it seems obvious.
I loved the “Pack Lunch, Drop Kids Off, Skate,Work” short photo essay from the NYT (gift article). The women who were either returning to skateboarding or picking it up afresh in their 40s were inspiring. Having a mini ramp in my my house was always a secret dream of mine (and one that will never come to fruition).
While I think the journaling addition to HEY calendar looks very inviting, the idea of storing something as important as a journal in a proprietary format that will be inaccessible if you cancel your account, the company drops the feature or goes out of business, seems like a very bad idea.
Back To Worship
Sunday, August 25, 2024
I missed Divine Liturgy last week because I had to bid goodbye to my wife’s aunt, who just moved up North. Maybe it was the longing for worship I had missed that made this piece by Zac Settle about discovering Orthodoxy so appealing to me, but there was a lot that resonated. The chanters might be intoning away during Orthros while the priest is hearing confessions while the altar staff are replacing candles or tidying up while the greeters are setting baked goods in the hands and laps of visitors, setting chairs aright in an imperceptibly off-kilter row, or setting candles in front of the iconostasis, the row of icon panels between the altar and the sanctuary.
Noble Oak - Eveningstar
Friday, August 16, 2024
Recently, a friend on Mastodon asked followers about their first cassette purchase. I had no trouble recollecting getting Starship’s Knee Deep In The Hoopla when I was in the fourth grade as my introduction to the world of music on tape. I wore that tape out playing the all-too radio friendly songs like “We Built This City” (some might say the song was pandering — the shoutout to all the cities hasn’t aged well).
One Actress And A Melon
Friday, August 9, 2024
The creative forces behind Ginger Root have a concept for a show featuring one actress (it’s all they had the budget for). Their Japanese protagonist changes looks and activities often to keep people of the world glued to their sets. In the end, it seems, what suits her best is rockin' out. The song “There Was A Time” itself has a breezy 70s feel, with a healthy dose of tropicalia in the mix and a smidgen of psychedelia.
Your Analyst Was A Placekicker For The Falcons
Saturday, April 27, 2024
I woke up at 4 AM a few days ago, hungry from fasting. I decided to check out what the internet had in store for me and ended up perusing through videos on YouTube. My early morning restlessness led me to a very strange video from singer Caroline Polachek and I followed that rabbit trail to an interview with her.
As with other times I’ve seen her interviewed, Polachek is lively, engaging and articulate. One part that struck me, though, is when she talks about the magic of crowds at her shows singing in unison. She understands the positive power that a group of people singing together brings. However, when she tries to come up with an instance of people coming together to sing in a way that expresses transcendence, the best analogy a creative and intelligent woman like Polachek can come up with is… a sporting event!