It was 1994. I was watching 120 Minutes on MTV and they played “Ultra Twist” by The Cramps. I cannot be certain of the time of year – if it was the end of middle school, the beginning of high school or the summer in between. All I know is this video blew my mind.
Read MoreRock music fans have long insisted their favorite artists live up to an incredibly high set of standards (if not morals). The primary demand that fans have on their music is that the music or the artist is “authentic”.
Read MoreI’ll admit it, I’m not the world’s biggest Foo Fighters fan. This isn’t to say I don’t respect the hell out of Dave and everyone who has ever been in the band, all the way to new drummer Josh Freese. Dave might be the most talented musician/writer of our generation. Most of it just doesn’t move me. There’s usually one song on each record I love, otherwise, I can do without.
Except, The Colour and the Shape. I love this record from first note to last and I have since it came out on May 20, 1997.
Read MoreThe thing that makes this record so incredible is the same thing that makes it hard for me to listen to now (with the exceptions of a few songs): it’s an album written by a young man. It perfectly incapsulates what it is to be a not-yet-fully-formed man in a confusing world, trying to figure out how to be the man you’re supposed to be, especially in the context of your place in a relationship with a woman.
Read MoreLetters to Cleo are an interesting study in what music in the 90’s were like. I don’t want to over-simplify it, but you didn’t have to have a ton of chart success to have a major label career or a lasting cultural impression.
Read MoreIt’s incredible how they’ve been one of the biggest bands in the world for twenty-five years and, even to this day, I rarely meet anyone who has heard of them. I love all of their records (and Kelly’s solo work) but this one still gets me down deep.
Read MorePete Yorn has pretty good taste in the ladies. I say that because two of my exes back in the day told me, separately, he tried to pick them up. That having been said, I could have told him he was better off getting shot down by those two.
Read MoreWhile I personally think this record should have shot him to super-stardom, I think the two reasons it didn’t are two of the things I love about it the most.
Read MoreNowadays, things are fast, cheap and disposable. We used to build things to last. They were timeless. Now, we don’t care about our work, we don’t care about our things and we don’t care about each other. So, when people call me a dinosaur, I take it as a compliment.
Not only does Tiger Army take this kind of pride in their craft when it comes to writing, performing and recording, but they do it with their merch, and especially their music videos. Art comes first. On their terms. Their way.
Read MoreI can’t remember for sure how I heard about the Pistols, only that it was sometime in 1992. I rode my bike to Karma Records and bought The Smashing Pumpkins Siamese Dream and Never Mind the Bollocks. The twenty-something girl checking me out said something to the effect, “Your mom will be okay with the Smashing Pumpkins, but I don’t think she’ll like the Sex Pistols.”
Read MoreI keep returning to Depeche Mode. Why? Because ultimately what I care about are songs and Martin Gore is an amazing songwriter and they have an ability to push their boundaries when needed and to show restraint when needed.
Read MoreU2 have become a bloated band of old rich dudes. I think they can largely blame themselves for their current irrelevance. However, I do believe people still look back on The Joshua Tree with the reverence it deserves. The rest of the catalog however, people have pushed it into the dustbin. I think The Joshua Tree is a masterpiece, but I also think Achtung Baby is a masterpiece as well. One that paved the way for a lot of music that is out there today, but I think it happened subtly and people don’t recognize it’s there.
Read MoreBoth of their records are insanely good. It is really unfortunate they’ve received so little attention, at least stateside. I started reading the British music press in the late 90s and I vaguely remember seeing some mentions, but never anything here in America.
Read MoreI almost never hear anyone talk about this record, but it is absolutely my favorite Green Day record.
Read MoreIt took me awhile to appreciate the Ataris. All these years later, I can admit it was a bit of jealousy. Kris and I were never friends, but I used to see him all the time at shows in Indianapolis, mostly at the Emerson Theater, and also at A-1 Records in Anderson.
Read MoreThis record is not their masterpiece, but it certainly blew people minds and gave you glimpses into the music to come.
Read MoreI paid homage to Chris Bell on the cover of my 2021 single, “Overwhelming”. I shot it myself in the course of a few minutes, with help from my friend Dave to make sure my tripod didn’t blow over on a windy Colorado day. In recent years, Chris has started to catch up with his former bandmate Alex Chilton in posthumous “cool credibility”, but I have long been as connected to, if not more, Chris’s musical talents as I have Alex’s.
Read MoreRyan Adams has been so prolific dating back to his time in Whiskeytown in the 1990s that, possibly aside from Heartbreaker, his solo debut, you could say all of his records are under-appreciated.
Read MoreWhen you saw Natalie Imbruglia’s name, you immediately thought of “Torn” didn’t you?
Read MoreI grew up six miles down the road from the house John grew up in on Indiana Highway 11. Me, just north of Jonesville in Bartholomew County, and he just north of Rockford in Jackson County. Of course, he’s 28 ½ years older than me, but as I was becoming aware of music, his musical shadow was a long one in Southern Indiana. Some of my earliest memories are of driving around on the country roads and my folks having a collection of great cassettes in the car: Eliminator (ZZ Top), Learning to Crawl (The Pretenders) and Uh Huh and American Fool by John.
Read More
