The grass is going brown already, but I won’t water it. I hadn’t laid on it yet, on my back with the dog in the sun, afternoon wine, nothing to do, nowhere to be. Like the August we went to… Read More ›
music
I love Gary Numan
God, listen to Gary Numan. The reason, he puts Punk into it. Punk is hard to define, but worth it. Punk is a nervous, agitated energy. It puts an urgency to things and makes you uncomfortable, when it’s done right…. Read More ›
Don’t Measure Your Love: Jason Molina is Dead
Sunset and birdsong, summer, Jason Molina is dead and has been a few months. You’d pass him on the street and not know it. He tried his best, no less. I thought I could write the story of his life… Read More ›
The problem with popularity
The more people like you, promote you, vote for you, or buy what you sell…the more people have demands and expectations of you. You grow, expand, and change as much as the people allow. You belong to the people, that’s… Read More ›
Fake rooms for people
In the mid 90s I didn’t have a computer and had to rent time on a box at an internet cafe on Broadway. It was dark, small and felt sleazy: four or five of us with our backs to each… Read More ›
The record you made after you should have stopped making records
Driving across Maryland in the middle of the night, from a state campground back to our flat in Ocean City. The end of the summer, college graduation, months spent standing around with lagers and our guts hanging out, passing pipes,… Read More ›
Quality, Popularity
These two don’t always go together. Businesses that grow from a quality product struggle to maintain it once they get big; they pay consultants to help them remember what it was like to be small. Morrissey said, “Fame, fame, fatal… Read More ›
If the world could be a sweater and I could try it on before buying it
Titles are important. Like the name you choose for your child, it should match the expectation you have for what’s inside. You have the responsibility to grant the name, but it’s not yours: it’s the story’s, the child’s. You’re just… Read More ›
Universal Lie Detector
The challenge of daily life, of art, is to be real. It’s the music that sounds like it’s from the heart, coming from a deep place, not motivated by money. It’s what I hear in early records by REM, when… Read More ›
Bill Pearse 