I’ve been doing this annual CD review for several years now, even though few people notice, let alone care. So lately I’ve been pondering why I’m so obsessive about this ritual of seeking out new music, listening, buying, evaluating, ranking, and reporting, especially in a world gone so relativistic that we’re afraid to suggest that one thing is actually better
Read moreIn my not-so-humble estimation, Don Dixon is one of the four or five best producers alive. He’s twiddled the knobs for Kim Carnes, The Connells, Marshall Crenshaw, Pat DiNizio, Emmet Swimming, Guadalcanal Diary, The Pinetops, James McMurtry, The Windbreakers, Moxy Früvous, Marti Jones, Let’s Active, The Spongetones, Chris Stamey and Matthew Sweet, to name a few. He co-produced Tommy Keene’s
Read moreJeff Foster’s first band, The Right Profile, remains one of the three best bands I ever saw that never “made it.” They managed a remarkable balance of verve and melancholy, moving easily between house-shakers like “Shacktown Road” and hauntingly beautiful ballads like “Underneath the Window.” I once saw them take the stage in front of a packed, jacked house, only
Read moreL.A. pop diva Wendie Colter recently took a few moments out from the busy task of promoting her new CD, Payday, to play 22 Questions with The Lullaby Pit. Payday was #4 on the Pit’s Best CDs of 1999, and despite a complete lack of help from the corporate music complex, it’s getting spin on stations across the country. 1:
Read moreFirst John Rocker proved to the world that he was an idiot. Now it looks like Bud Selig’s turn, but there’s probably more to the story than meets the eye. According to the Associated Press, the Atlanta Braves pitcher has been “ordered by baseball to undergo psychological tests before deciding whether to punish the outspoken reliever for remarks he made
Read moreFrom a creative standpoint, the popular music industry has been on life support for some years, but I may well remember 1999 as the year when we finally pulled the sheet up over its head. There was a lot of fine music produced and released, but unless you had the time, energy, and determination to go hunting for it your
Read moreBelow is my Best CDs of the 1990s list. I never kidded myself for a second that I could produce a definitive review – if I can’t even convince myself that the list is as good as I’d like it, I can hardly fault others for disagreeing here and there, can I? In the end I wound up deciding on
Read moreAn edited version of this story appeared in the Denver Post on May 8, 1997 (p. 7B). The past few nights in Boulder have seen student rioting unlike anything Colorado has experienced in years. Darkness has literally transformed the Hill into a bonfire-lit war zone, with drunken youths throwing everything they can pick up and the police responding with tear
Read more1998 was probably the oddest in the several years I have been doing a Top 10 list. For starters, a lot of the best stuff I heard came from new or relatively new artists. A lot of the more established artists I admire didn’t release anything in 1998, so that’s probably part of the reason, but I also suspect I’m
Read moreThis was the hardest time I’ve ever had trying to put my year-end list together. Maybe I’m not being “critical” enough or something, but I liked a lot of music this year. Also, I decided to change my format a bit. Every year I do my Top Ten, then spend the first two months of the following year finding music that
Read moreFor years now, polite society has been torn over the fur question. On a 1995 trip to Rocky Mountain National Park with my friends Will and Jamie Bower, I was hit with what can only be regarded as an artistic, aesthetic, and political epiphany. Finally, something both the pro-fur and anti-fur camps can agree on. Here I’m seen modeling the
Read moreI try to avoid getting teary-eyed about This Great Land in Which We Live. We all know the United States has tremendous shortcomings, and it seems like our every success only reminds us of ten more problems which have not been adequately addressed. Tonight, though, we saw a remarkable moment, and for a few seconds between innings at Shea Stadium
Read moreI’ve been accused over the years – justly, I suppose – of being too much the pessimist. Negative expectations yield negative results, my friends tell me, and while I have argued that in my experience positive expectations yield negative results, too, I’ve been forced to admit that Murphy’s Law isn’t much of a philosophy to live by. And so lately
Read moreRemarks presented to the 1st International Summit on Electronic Communication & Culture Popular Culture Association National Conference Electronic Communication Area San Antonio, Texas March 26-29, 1997 Samuel R. Smith Center for Mass Media Research School of Journalism & Mass Communication University of Colorado Over the past few years the Internet has become one of the most talked-about innovations in our
Read moreIt’s Tuesday, March 5, and I just returned from the polls, where I cast my ballot for Pat Buchanan. Let’s set the record straight: I’m an independent who affiliated with the Republican party for the express purpose of voting in this GOP presidential primary. Tomorrow, it’s back to being an independent. More importantly, I feel about Pat Buchanan like I
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