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The Core is Getting Soft.1
I’ve been thinking about starting a new set of posts for awhile about various kinds of music software – plug-ins, virtual instruments, etc. Digital doesn’t tend to get a lot of love in the indie world, historically speaking. Even the word “soft” carries negative connotations in a genre that followed in the wake of hardcore.…
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Ill Communication
It’s easy while thinking critically about trends in US history to fall into two traps – romanticizing a period in the past when things were supposedly better, or telling the story of past oppressions in ways that make it sound like no one spoke or acted out against it at the time. The recent book…
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Top 40 Over 40.10: Bill Dixon
In this series of posts on artists who inspired me to start recording again by doing first-rate work on or after their 4oth birthday, Bill Dixon is an anomaly. Most of the folks I’ve written about were known for an early body of work done in their 20’s, and managed a “return to form” after…
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We Talk About You When You Leave
A guy walks into a hotel restaurant bar in Boston’s Back Bay on an October night in 2003. The staff politely inform him that it is closing time, but that he may order from the full menu and have room service bring his order to his suite. The expensively dressed “gentleman” insists that he be…
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Top 40 Over 40.9: Jandek….live?!?!
I didn’t pay much attention to what was going on in the undie music scene during the aughts. I listened to some things that were current, but mostly I was just writing lyrics on my own and listening to a lot of modern classical music. When I started lending an ear indie-ward over the last…
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The Interpretation of Dreams
I don’t usually watch the Olympics much. Not because I don’t enjoy the events, but because NBC usually feels compelled to shovel forklifts of “human interest” stories down your throat with brief breaks taken for cursory athletic performances. So I wasn’t surprised when I checked in on the Olympics briefly this summer and didn’t see…
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R.I.P., MCA.1
I’d like to express my respect for the late MCA’s work by sharing some thoughts his passing brought to mind about an aspect of his life that many of referred to but few focus on at length, which is his interest in and practice of Buddhist teachings. I didn’t learn about Buddhism from MCA, and…
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“You should know from the kindness of a dog how a man should be” – Captain Beefheart
From Faces and Masks: Trilogy of Fire volume 2 by Eduardo Galeano 1833: Arequipa “Happy creatures,” says Flora Tristan. Flora is travelling through Peru, her father’s country, and in the mountains discovers the only animal man has not been able to debase. The gentle llamas are more agile than mules and climb higher. They…
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Wanna read Wainaina? You should!
I’ve decided many of my posts are too long, so I’m gonna keep this short: I just started reading One Day I Will Write About This Place by Binyavanga Wainaina this morning and it’s awesome. Check it out!
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Top 40 Over 40.8: Scott Walker’s hat trick
Sometimes pop artists you associate with youth surprise you with a new vocal persona that suits them as they get older. (Think Robert Plant on Raising Sand.) But in the case of Scott Walker, he never really sounded like a young man to begin with. Sure, he was a teen idol back in the late…
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johnhdavis / inundation records 