2022 Albums of the Year

Back by popular demand, the albums of my year. Twenty-twenty-two was a doozy of a year, but at least there were some great tunes by some of my favorite bands to help get me through. Nothing beats the shot of adrenaline when a song connects. If you know me, you know it’s my drug. Here’s…

2020 Albums of the Year

After a year that was the most unpredictable in my lifetime and continues to be up until these final moments, I’ve compiled my list of best albums of 2020.  The last time I ever felt the way I did this year must have been sometime in my teens.  Probably around 15 when everything seemed out…

The XX– Forum Karlin, Prague, November 29, 2016

The XX show last night a Prague’s Forum Karlin blew the pants off the one a few years back at the big room at the Lucerna downtown.  The Lucerna show was fine performance and setlist wise but the sound was horrible.  At that show, there were none of the gut-rattling low frequency elements of the…

RAMONES

For some reason I’m buying up Stooges and Ramones records like nobody’s business. I don’t know what happens when you’re a 42 year-old punk rock fan but I get the feeling that I’m about to find out. Ironically, I’m writing this during an intermission in the Nutcracker ballet.

The Future of Music?

If this is the future of music, my record collection is going to be very valuable.  Because this sounds pretty awful.

Albums of My Year – 2011

  These are the albums of my year.  If they interest you, check them out.  They’re not the be all and end all of music.  However, this has been the soundtrack of 2011 for me.  I’m happy to say that many of them have been appreciated on vinyl.  That medium, more than anything else, has…

Spit Or Litter Is Back!

I can tell you that the band has been in the studio. In just three evenings, Spit Or Litter has composed three new songs. One is entitled “Wrong Side of Bed” and lacks lyrics other than a chorus and is in desperate need of a bridge. It was made from an obscure Replacements guitar sample…

Vinyl Fetish

Nostalgia is a part of getting older, I suppose.  Maybe that’s why I was pretty dang excited to find myself in a record store the other day.  I was buying a buddy of mine his birthday present.  I don’t usually exchange gifts with friends but he bought me this unbelievable bottle of gin for my…

Saved by Rock ‘n Roll

There’s a particular passage in Andy Summers’ One Train Later where he muses, “Is there anything better than music?”  I’d have to say I have asked the same question a million times in my life.  It is no exaggeration that music is responsible for the best parts of my life.  Forget the concerts or the…

(Another) New U2 Album on the Way

This from the New York Times: U2 expects to release a companion album, which band members say will have a more meditative and processional tone, before the end of the year. Don’t believe the description, just know that more music is coming.  I’m doing a little jig.

New Gomez Song

This morning, a bouncy, gritty, distorted, glitchy pop song was born on the Gomez web site.  It’s called “Airstream Driver” and, if I have to classify it, I’d say it fits somewhere between “In Our Gun” and “Split the Difference” in style.  But I’ve only listened to it once and Gomez is a tough band…