Category Archives: Essays

Superman Need Not Apply

  John Cena has everything wrestling promoters revere.  He’s well-built, good-looking, has a ton of charisma, and delivers in big match situations.   He sells a ton of merchandise, is an ambassador for the business, and goes out of his way … Continue reading

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What’s His Signature?

  Freak of the Week at Ram\’s Head Live In 1999, Butch Walker’s power pop band, The Marvelous 3, scored a top five hit with “Freak of the Week,” a song about an indie band getting a taste of fame.  … Continue reading

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Farewell, Big Man

Clarence Clemons is dead.  I never thought I’d type that sentence.  Clemons’ enormous personality made him seem immortal.  When the notes poured out of his saxophone, he was no longer a person, but a force of nature.  When I saw … Continue reading

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Goodbye, Jani

  There comes a time in every rock critic’s career where you have an Almost Famous moment. A moment when your naïve vision of what rock journalism is like comes true.  Mine occurred at the inaugural M3 Rock Fest in … Continue reading

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The Bill Isn’t That Good This Year

Teenagers have a habit of revealing too much about themselves.  In the twenty minutes my friend Clyde and I had been in line for the Virgin Mobile FreeFest, we learned the following things about the freshly scrubbed young people behind … Continue reading

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Aerosmith: Rocks

“My favorite band is Aerosmith.” When I hear this sentence, I cringe.  Not because I dislike Aerosmith, but because I can recite the coming exchange word for word. “Cool.  What’s your favorite album?” I ask, knowing the answer. “Pump.” We … Continue reading

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Public Relations

Photo Credit: AMC Who is Don Draper? Don has been asked this question dozens of times over the course of the series, so he gives the reporter the same oblique answers he’s given everyone else.  He looks him dead in … Continue reading

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Budokan!

Cheap Trick’s At Budokan has one of the greatest album covers in the history of rock n’ roll.  Lead singer Robin Zander and bassist Tom Peterson are standing next to each other, grinning from ear to ear.  They are smiling … Continue reading

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Insubordination Fest: Day 2

When I woke up on Saturday morning, it took me a while to process the day ahead.  Eleven hours at Sonar.  I took a deep breath, rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and rolled out of bed.  I was … Continue reading

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Bryan Danielson, We Hardly Knew Ye

Yesterday afternoon, I was proofreading the first positive essay about modern professional wrestling that I had ever written.  In it, I lauded the WWE for their brilliant handling of the WWE-NXT Invasion.  For the first time in ages, I sat … Continue reading

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