Category Archives: Music

My Top 10 of 2011 (and other fun lists!)

Remember when I used to be a writer?  That was awesome, right?  2011 was a really intense year for me, so my “career,” unfortunately fell by the wayside.  However, I never stopped listening, so here are my favorite records of … 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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Sebastian Bach: Kicking and Screaming

  Sebastian Bach is one of heavy metal’s great interpreters.  Dave “The Snake” Sabo and Rachael Bolan were good songwriters, and Skid Row would have probably been successful with another singer, but Bach took their songs and shaped them into … Continue reading

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Elvis is Back! (50th Anniversary Edition)

  The career of Elvis Presley is usually broken into two arcs.  The first is Young Elvis, the greasy haired hillbilly with a dangerous sneer and gyrating pelvis.  The second is Gilded Elvis, the overweight drug addict in a white … 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 White Stripes: 1997-2011

I was the bearer of bad news at WTMD today: Oh well, 13 years is a damn good run.

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The Best of 2010

2010 has come and gone, so that means it’s time for me to pare down the hundreds of records I’ve listened to this year to ten.  I don’t feel like writing a fancy introduction, so let’s boogie.   1. Superchunk: … 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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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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