originally published June 5, 2014 Unite a crowd of people under the frumpy awning of hate and it’s not hard for things to shimmy out of control. Provide those same people with a river of cheap beer and a charismatic leader to stoke their ire and you’d best check that you’re insured against a savage […]

originally published May 21, 2014 A survey of music lovers who possess even so much as a passing interest in the Beatles’ music will undoubtedly reveal “Come Together” to be one of the most universally beloved bullets in their melodic clip. From its swampy bass, its percussive “Shoot me” refrain to its absurdist and almost […]

originally published May 11, 2014 I was fifteen years old when my dad utilized his extensive technological prowess to produce a cassette recording for me of all the Beatles’ so-called backward messages. By “prowess” I mean he played a reel-to-reel tape backwards. It wasn’t tricky. Playing music backwards is a phenomenon that has existed since […]

originally published April 12, 2014 The music that roared through the stucco and plaster of Hitsville U.S.A. to become the Motown sound that defined soul music in the 1960’s was crafted by some of the most formidable talent the music world has ever cradled. Unfortunately, while stars like Diana Ross, Smokey Robinson and Martha Reeves […]

originally published March 21, 2014 Growing up as I did amid hippie anthems, psychedelic living room lighting fixtures and the notorious sweet smell of those skinny little cigarettes my parents would pass back and forth, it was easy to romanticize the Woodstock culture. When I attended high school, anti-war activism (to boot Iraq out of […]

originally published February 10, 2014 These days it seems that if a musical artist wishes to ‘shock’ their audience they either have to piss in a hotel mop bucket or declare themselves to be a genius whilst naming their offspring after a compass direction. Where are the ornithological decapitations? The pseudo-sanguine fluid cascading from a […]

originally published February 5, 2014 It didn’t take me long to learn that I am not by any stretch of human kindness a good dancer. I can keep a solid beat and even coordinate all four of my limbs into various rhythmic dissections whilst sitting. But once my wife takes hold of my hand and […]

originally published January 31, 2014 It’s time once again to clear the room of friends, family and suspicious strangers by cranking up the worst of the worst. You know, the most urethra-scrapingly awful thing about these terrible songs is the fact that they have each achieved a grotesque level of popularity. People who toil for eight, […]