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Features and Commentary
Nobody Gets Booed Down Here
So what's the music scene like in Antarctica? (Pitchfork)
Better Late Than Never: Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde
Here's my confession: in all my life, and after several years of
writing about music, I have totally slept on Bob Dylan. I don't mean
that I didn't spend enough time on Dylan. I'm saying that until a
couple months ago, I had zero interest in the guy. And I have no excuse.
(The Onion AV Club)
Who Needs the DJ?
Community radio legends such as "The Polka Party" host Gary
Sredzienski have all but disappeared from the air, and the personal touch
of pirate radio and podcasting—and impersonal touch of mostly DJ-less
digital music choices—have yet to replace them. (Pitchfork)
All the War's a Stage
If you're a performer, you can help the troops in Iraq and abroad by touring with Armed Forces Entertainment, as one of the comics, cheerleaders, stars or musicians that tour around the world to entertain the troops. In return, you leave your life for up to a month to work for free, submit to the unpredictable demands of the military, and travel through countries where people shoot helicopters like the one you're in right out of the sky. (Pitchfork)
Commentary
Brütal Legend: A Love Story
Brütal Legend slagged my heart. I was ready for solos that shred, men that shriek,
and monsters with teeth where they should have had faces. I was ready to dig the
jokes and hate the gameplay. But nobody told me that Brütal Legend's a love story.
(Edge)
Zero Sum Pinball
I rue the day I ever taught my son pinball. (Edge)
Reviews
The Beatles: Rock Band
TV on the Radio, Dear Science
Subtle, exitingARM
Andy Partridge, Fuzzy Warbles Box Set
Patti Smith, Horses Reissue
Spore
Fatale
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!!
Books
I contributed to the Onion AV Club's Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists,
Scribner, 2009.
I contributed to and deputy edited
The Pitchfork 500, Fireside Press, 2008.
My Week
on the Avril Lavigne eTeam
was reprinted in The Rock History Reader, ed. Theo Cateforis.
The Chumbawamba Factor was selected as a
"Notable Essay" in Da Capo Best Music Writing 2006.
Radio and Appearances
My pals at NHPR's Word of Mouth invited me to talk about my predictions for the next decade, and games to bring the family together for the holidays.
Listen to me on KCRW's The Business talking about movie people who try to make games, and on WNYC's Soundcheck, talking about
politics and Halo 3
.
I moderated a dream panel on music discovery and music recommendation
for the Boston Music Hackday in October 2009.
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Interviews
Sir Paul McCartney
I read something recently, it was just talking about trees and what they do as machines. The fact that they pump up these thousands of gallons of water, without anything we would recognize as a machine. It's just a nature machine, it's just a green machine. And the trees then convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. And we go, "Yeah, it's just a tree." But Jesus Christ, you try and do that! (Pitchforkmedia.com)
Daryl Hall
I love the fact that the record companies are all going down. This is a personal triumph for me. I beat the record companies. Sony Music may go out of business, but I'm not going out of business. (Pitchfork)
Doseone
I'm done with this "I Me Me I" breakup song, potency-of-one-person thing. I don't find it timeless. I find it perfect for certain moods, and they're moods I'm in less often the older I get. Now I have a deep desire to be involved, and for meaning and permanence, and I really want something that hits me again. Something that occurs in my life and I'm like, "Oh, that's why Buckminster Fuller says they should grow rice in China." Things that stick to the ribs. (Pitchfork)
TV on the Radio's David Sitek
We're not trying to sway anybody's beliefs. We're just trying to get people to examine their own opinion about that subject. And it's very hard to do that. It's very hard to leave it open-ended, like, "What do you feel about global warming?" If we say, "Stop burning the fucking children," it's like, if they don't have children, you've eliminated them completely. (Pitchfork)
Who likes Battlestar Galactica? Apparently I do. Check out my interviews with
Ronald D. Moore
,
James Callis
and a rare and fascinating conversation with
Michael Hogan. (Onion AV Club)
Max Tundra
I think the sexual thing with music is quite interesting, because there's the negative side of it—which is the kind of masturbatory side, where you just get these long solos with very basic chords in the back of them, and it's just basically someone wanking on the guitar. And I think that's bad sex in music. But I think good sex in music is when there's almost this kind of euphoric, sort of orgasmic moment where you might just get this nice little chord or this thing that harmonizes in a certain way, and there should be a point in every song that does that, where you're just thinking, "Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's nice."
(Resident Advisor)
David Byrne
There's still a feeling that uncensored emotions make a good song. They don't. Pure emotion is just somebody screaming at you, or crying. It doesn't communicate anything. It has to be mediated with some skill and craft, in order to communicate it to a second, a third, or a fourth person. That doesn't make it any less real. And it doesn't make it any less true. (Pitchfork)
David Sylvian
The guru acts as a provocation more often than not. Initially it's a seductive, romantic relationship, and when you're in the fold, it becomes provocative, it tests you. And I've never come across anything that is as pinpoint accurate as the message you get through the guru. You go through this process with other people who have common goals, you see them confronting their fears, the tests that they're put through, and you look at the manner in which they're tested and think, "I could handle that." But when the opportunity for you to learn from your fears comes along, it's like, "Jesus Christ, give me any other lesson you choose, but not that one."
(Pitchfork)
A profile of Ray LaMontagne, in convenient, hard-to-read scans. (Paste Magazine)
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