The other day while aimlessly scrolling through twitter Nathanial Freedman, of Free Darko fame, posted a link to Wilson Pickett’s cover of “Hey Jude”. I’d never heard the version before so I clicked on the link and was utterly blown away.  It was one of those moments where I was instantly enthralled by every aspect... Continue Reading →

Record stores are a bit anachronistic in 2019. Music went digital years ago and now we get it through anything from phones to refrigerators. I have a few Amazon Echos set up in my house so I no longer even need to press buttons, I can just ask out loud for the little electronic spy... Continue Reading →

It’s a warm late August night and I’ve got Hollis Brown’s latest ‘Ozone Park’ on the turntable. It’s the kind of album that was written for this kind of night. Some albums are winter albums, some are spring day albums, some are for weddings, some are for divorce. Ozone park is for driving around on... Continue Reading →

I’ve been sick for a little while now. Last month I spent a few miserable days in the hospital and the repercussions from that continue to linger. Nothing life threatening but the kind of thing that causes low level of ongoing misery. The point is I haven’t felt like myself in a while, until the... Continue Reading →

I know I've been lax writing here for the last month. It's been an odd month and I may or may not write something about the last week or so. But for now, my latest story "The Book" has just been published in the latest issue of Lovecraftiana, the magazine for Eldritch Horror! It's the... Continue Reading →

This morning I drove to the top of Mount Royal, the hill in the center of Montreal, looked out over the city, and then hit the road. I loved Montreal and thought about staying another day, but decided that it’s not much of a road trip if I’m not on the road. I headed out... Continue Reading →

The first time I was in Montreal I was nine or ten. My mom, brother, and I were staying in my uncle's cabin in Vermont and drive over the border to visit the city overnight. I don’t remember much of the trip other than we visited a fort and it rained. At some point in... Continue Reading →

‘Dink’s Song’ is an old American folk song. It’s sometimes called ‘Fare Thee Well’, which makes more sense when you listen to it than ‘Dink’s Song’. It gets its name because John Lomax, who studied folk music, first heard it sung by a woman named Dink in Texas in 1909. John’s son Alan first published... Continue Reading →

In 2011 the Decemberists released the album ‘The King Is Dead’. It was a departure from their previous albums. It was less an exercise in old British folk tales and impenetrable references, and more an alt-country tinged monument to folk-pop melancholia. I had listened to the band off and on prior to the album’s release.... Continue Reading →

Sultry isn’t a word you would use to describe the Northeast where I grew up. No one makes movies about hot and sweaty Connecticut nights. Clifton Chenier may have visited the Catskill mountains, but that’s not what you hear in his music. Those things all belong to the South, all tangled up between myth, legend,... Continue Reading →