“I remember every little thing as if it happened only yesterday.”
I don’t do a lot of dashboard drumming these days when I drive. Or singing along with a song at full volume. Head banging. Air drumming and guitaring and piano-ing. Revere and ecstasy while driving is something I avoid.
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Sometimes, just when things seem absolutely hopeless, a sort of cultural or economic ‘miracle’ seems to transpire and everything looks rosy again, and we can breathe a collective sigh of relief. …
There’s some music that’s built for the moment and then there’s music that’s built for the lifetime. There was one particular moment when I found out that Erykah Badu’s 2000 album Mama’s Gun is the latter.
I began listening to this album one random morning. Then, a few songs in…
In September of 2020, Rolling Stone Magazine published their list of the The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. (In fact, it was an updated version of a list they originally released in 2003.)
It is my lot in life, my personal burden to bear, to review each one of…
Last week in The Riff, ya’ll seemed to enjoy this, so I’m going to keep doing them, probably until I’ve covered all the parks!
If you didn’t catch the first one here’s a link:
The gist of this series; is just selecting a song that fits the vibe of the…
For much of this millennium, I worked on the assumption that Styx had thrown in the towel with recording new music.
The underwhelming Cyclorama came and went in 2003 with little fanfare and did not trouble the charts on either side of the pond.
And the unheralded release of covers…
Always begin with music. That’s what I say. Even in the classroom.
So I play “Breaking the Law” from Judas Priest, “Folsom Prison Blues” from Johnny Cash, and “I Fought the Law” from The Clash.
Why?
Well, Henry David Thoreau breaks the law by refusing to pay his tax to…
Recently, I went to an '80s themed murder mystery party dressed as David Lee Roth (or Davey Lee Broth). And yes, it's tough to pull the Roth look off with a dark beard that's got a gray tint to it.
But I'm like the Daniel Day-Lewis of costumes, so naturally…
Billy Joel started this.
It was back in the early ’80s, around when Joel’s “Uptown Girl” video was rotating on MTV. I read this magazine interview, he was asked something about the path to there from Glass Houses and from Piano Man before that. …
This Sunday past saw the first gathering of The Riff Album of The Month of the year, to discuss Bloc Party’s 2005 album Silent Alarm.
Present to listen to my disjointed spasms of passionate nostalgia—and share their own experience of (re)discovering the album—were Terry Barr, David Acaster, If Ever You’re…
A new publication on music and how it’s impacting our lives ❤
