Digital platforms are struggling, meanwhile a 136-year-old book retailer is growing again. But why?

I've handpicked 56 tracks from the Lone Star State (3 hours of music)

A few minutes after yesterday’s post I learned the sad news about Christine McVie. So the request I had just made for well…requests... became a bit moot. It appears a lot of us had the same thought. I promise I’ll pick something else from the request pile in the future. But for now, since I couldn’t decide on which song to pay tribute to Christine with, I’m including a few.

+ Chit-Chat Check-In #75: There Are a Lot of A’s in Guadalajara

At the airport pasting a picture

Catching up, future plans and Robert's ring

Hello! Here is a snippet of a new song, as yet unfinished, that we were practicing to record. Is a bad capture, but the musicians; Paul Rigby, John Convertino, Sebastian Steinberg and Steve Moore are really locking in and gorgeous so I wanted you to hear a little of what causal practice with heavy hitters sounds like. :)

On Broadway

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. - John O’Donohue I went to the woods with my two dogs yesterday. I had been feeling the weight of troubled times. I don’t think I’m alone in sensing the dark shadows of unkindness framing the world like an old style vignetted photo. I go …

Video Conversation, Tablature, Audio Tablature, Lyrics

And I recorded it. Here's "Sailor's Song."

Chutes Too Narrow is twenty!

Hello, from the other side

Tegan, One of my earliest memories is of you suffering from an earache. It's more like a photograph in my mind—our living room in Marlborough Park, with its brown carpeting and couches, dimly lit. You were on Dad's lap, crying, and so was he. Whether he truly cried alongside you, I cannot be certain. But does the accuracy of his recollection matter in this instance? Helplessness best describes the feeling. There's a sense of stillness, as if we were waiting for a bus. Perhaps we were indeed waiting—for medicine to take effect or for your crying (and his) to subside. Questions arise: Where was Mom? Was it truly you on Dad's lap? Like many childhood memories, I ponder if reality has been distorted. Sometimes, a reliable narrator (Mom) reveals that it wasn't as I remembered. Similarly, regarding your nightmares, I recall experiencing them when, in fact, it was you who often woke in the night, crying out in terror while I observed from the doorway as our parents comforted you back to sleep.

Why I can't let go of "Into The Wild", and why perhaps you can't, either.

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a.k.a. The current version of dance music isn't what many artists originally signed up for.

a.k.a. Dance music's unencouraging 2023, , plus a round-up of the latest electronic music news and a fresh slate of new track recommendations.

1997-03-31, Memorial Stadium, St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada

"I go upstairs, and it is like Animal House…"

I am posting this because people have asked me to. Emily Rose Marcus was born on December 10, 1969, in Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley. It was a forceps delivery, and she came out with bruises on her face, yet she lived her life as a woman who prized beauty—in fashion, her own sense of style, furniture, art. Following her beloved uncle Dr. William E. Bernstein, she chose a death with dignity, and died on January 31, 2023, in her apartment in Oakland, where she had lived since 2007, after more than two years fighting against a terminal diagnosis of appendiceal cancer she had received in September 2020. Our hearts are broken.

Critics who agree about everything aren't critics. You could go so far as to say that people who agree about everything aren't people...

26 February, 2021.

"After all these years, the Rolling Stones are still trying to achieve what You’re Beautiful did in just four weeks."

Listen to Roger Nichols's long-awaited "Second Arrangement" cassette

A teenage photojournalist captured what may be the earliest known images of a Steely Dan performance.

In 1993, I started a hardcore fanzine that tried to make sense of a scene in transition. In Part 1 of 2, I try to explain why I felt Anti-Matter was necessary then—and why it feels relevant again now.

The Shape of Punk to Come didn't predict hardcore's future as much as it changed it. Reflecting on its 25th anniversary, there are still some things the Refused singer would have done differently.

Good morning. Today we’re listening to Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer. Pärt grew up in northern Estonia, began to compose music in his early teens, and studied composition at the Tallinn Conservatory.

Good morning. It’s Friday so we’re listening to something slightly more upbeat. Today we’re listening to dj +1, a Colombian electronic music producer from Bógota. We discovered him on Pitchfork’s Best Electronic Music of 2023 list

S/O to DeWhatitdo for the ask. A quick conversation on how to find your own sound. Enjoy.

Sidechain weekly nerdery

Welcome to the jungle. We’ve got Catan. On Skateboarding I have given up on street skating. In the words of my friend Richard, a plate glass specialist who spent most of last summer on a two-story scaffolding rig in my backyard, "I don't bounce anymore." There will be no more ledges and no more grassy gaps between parking lots. Definitely no more kickflip…

Plus January tour dates coming up soon.

2022 in music, part two

Deaths, despair, individuals, groups, and the four Bs: Beyoncé, Berger, Baldwin, and Basquiat

On Weathervanes, death, love and listening like a mother

The end of the year is slow for new music, but these are gems

Do you have a family history, Charles? “Well, doesn’t everybody?” I woke to the doctor in my face. She was asking me questions. Along the lines of, “Have you lost any weight recently?” I wanted to say, “As a matter fact I have. Thank you for noticing.” But just muttered a “Yeah, I guess . . .”

Earlier this week, our friend and running mate Keith Corcoran passed away peacefully in his sleep somewhere in Italy from diabetes-related issues. I don’t remember when exactly I first met Keith. But he and his friend Martin used to follow Green on Red up and down the Angry Island. And through the years we all got to know each other.

At the US Open, Cécile McLorin Salvant sang of an America to believe in

A semi-legendary thread, now in your inbox.

07/18/23

12/06/23

Austin is more than a footnote in the Jimmy Buffett story

How I found my side of the velvet rope- and stayed

Song Demo circa 2019

Recording An Album Again, 23 Years Later.

A Candid Interview with Chad Gardner

Discount valid through 11/12