Reviewing The Nashville Sound

I realize I haven’t done many record reviews here yet. Historically, I’ve reviewed music, movies and books on my SpaceBrew site. But being that this is a site dedicated to my interest in music, it would make sense to talk about the weather in Beijing. Well, here’s a funny story. I listen to several channels on SiriusXM. Mainly, those are Lithium, Octane (when I’m in a real hard mood), The Bridge and a few 70s stations. I’m mostly into the classic rock stations. Please don’t get me started on Classic Rock as a genre. That’s another column entirely. But one of the stations I listen to was playing this song, If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. See, the thing is, I saw his face on some billboard a year or so ago, and I thought, eff that guy. He looks like a dick. Full of keep reading

Bang for a Buck

It’s maybe not amazing how you can go through the same bins of CDs and see something different every time. What is amazing though, is that you can go through the same CD bins and find another twenty or so CDs. Every time you do it. And I don’t mean just feeding the addiction, getting new stuff to have it. I mean, had I seen these CDs the first time I browsed them, I would have gotten them all at once. Of course, they do add new ones to the mix occasionally, which means I have to check the whole aisle every time I go. Since I don’t know where they drop the new ones, you know. The LP New Arrivals only get put into four bins or so. And at that, they’re always dropped in the front of each bin. So I know when I’ve scanned back about thirty keep reading

I Wish I Had Stickier Fingers

I’m pretty good about following my own rules. I make rules for myself so that I don’t so stupid shit. I’m not big on making costly mistakes. I like to learn from it the very first time I make a mistake, and then hopefully apply that knowledge to everything I ever do in the future wherever it’s applicable. One such rule, for instance, comma, is that I do not allow myself to hang anything on the wall above my turntable that’s not absolutely secure. Like my badger-hair record brush. It’s off to the side, so that if it were to fall, it would not land on the turntable. See how smart I am? So let me tell you what happened. And you can decide whether I’m all that smart or not. I was cleaning my listening room. Maybe I was doing a little organizing. A little rearranging. I have this keep reading

My Kind of Weekend

Yesterday was our first event. So I had a lot I had to get done. I’ll spare you all the details, but I had to move some furniture. Which meant selling some of it and moving that. And we had to go to the furniture store to get a new couch. And I had to get my tote bags made to give to my DJs. And probably a little house cleaning to get ready to have company. Anyway, there was really no time for anything else during the day because I like to leave myself plenty of spare time. I don’t want to be rushed all day. But my wife told me the night before (Friday night) that we needed to leave the house at 7:30 to make a stop before we went to the furniture store. Okay, cool. I didn’t ask questions. Until yesterday morning. Where the hell are keep reading

How Do You Consume Music?

These days, music is consumed a lot differently than when we were kids. My dad’s CB handle was ‘8-tracker’. He sold so many 8-track cassettes that our ozone is going bad from all the plastic in the landfills. He also brought home boxes and boxes of LPs and 45s. He would make me mix tapes from the 45s. He was an awesome father, in other words. I listened to records, tapes and radio. Then came the Compact Disc. I had one of the first hundred-or-so copies of the first CD printed in the United States. Do you know what it was? *trivia question* Comment below with the correct answer for a free CD. The Compact Disc brought us perfect, lossless instances of our favorite songs. I, being the genius I am, saw the CD as the New World Order. We no longer need this terrible scratchable, warpable medium called vinyl. keep reading