One of the great things about the early 90’s music scene was the coming of age of the music sampler. The College Music Journal started distributing compilation CD’s to college radio stations and they were always chock full of good tracks. Even better, a large chunk of those CD’s wound up in used record stores [...]
Most remixes of a song add layers of sound to the originals. A stripped down number might get a horn section, added vocals and lots of new percussion sounds to make an extended version more suitable to the dance floor or headphones. (Or if you’re the Soup Dragons in their later period you just made [...]
As a music writer it’s hard to suppress the desire to tear into a song and break down all the aspects of what make it a great song. In one sense it’s like appreciating a great dish - you want to enjoy the food but at the same time you want to know what MAKES [...]
I first met Michael Dean Damron (when he was mostly just Mike D to his friends) when he was still playing with his band - the wonderfully titled I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch In The House. We were introduced by a mutual friend and I was immediately taken by his charm and wit. The rest [...]
I had the good fortune to recently see the Eels in concert a week ago. One of the great aspects of the Eels touring is that E (Mark Everett, the man behind the Eels) changes the configuration of his live band with each new tour. He’s taken out a standard four-piece band, a mini-orchestra and [...]
Some weekends things fly by so quickly you only realize how much fun things were as Sunday starts to fade into Monday morning. The best days are those that are a blur of activity punctuated only with pauses for sleep, maybe coffee and a deep breath before starting again.
Good songs are also like that - [...]
Many years ago I started looking for great breakup songs and, of course, spent a lot of time digging through Country records for material. I spent hours digging through crates of records at a used record store, listening to dozens of songs and taking requests from the staff. I found a lot of great material [...]