Part 1 in a series. I’ll go first. And since it’s my idea, I’ll take the editor’s privilege and cheat a bit by giving you two solos instead of one. Up first, we go back to 1974 and “Brighton Rock,” the lead track on Queen’s third album, Sheer Heart Attack. The band’s first two releases had been relentlessly self-conscious in their
Read moreStarting tomorrow – fittingly, on TunesDay – S&R will launch SNRGTR, a series spotlighting our favorite guitar work of all time. We were tempted to say “greatest,” but we’ve all read enough online lists from trolls music journalists to know where that leads. Instead, we have kept it simple, selecting our most cherished axe moments. We’ll tell you what we love and
Read moreThen In 1993, during my first year in the PhD program at the University of Colorado, we had a guest speaker in one of my classes. The subject was information technology and the Internet. He explained that at that moment, the largest repository of stored electronic data on Earth was at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, about four miles away.
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Even in its darkest hours, Saturday Night Live has served as a springboard for wildly successful careers. For all but a handful of seasons Saturday Night Live has been nigh-on unwatchable. Still, it has generated a veritable conga line of major stars through the years – you may not even realize how long a line. So this came up recently as I
Read moreIt’s been a strange couple of years. In August 2013 I moved to Seattle to take a new job. I was leaving the city I love, leaving my friends and my life and diving blind into the great unknown. I’ve done this before, several times, but it gets harder as you get older, especially when it feels like you’re running from
Read moreWhen “political correctness” and bad journalism collide… I appreciate the fact that we live in an age where finally – finally – we have grown more sensitive on issues like race, gender, sexual orientation and privilege. (I wish I could add class to that list, but so far I can’t.) I’m sincere about this. The language we use can do more
Read moreMuch of America is cold and white today. So let’s have some winter tuneage. John Phillips personal crimes notwithstanding, this is one of the greatest songs ever written.
Read moreI love almost everything about Colorado. Almost. Sadly, the climate here tends to have very short transitional seasons, and like a lot of people who grew up in my neck of the woods (NC), my favorites times of year have always been fall and spring. I took the long, moderate, invigorating equinox seasons for granted, I guess.
Read moreI needed a soundtrack for yesterday’s workout and settled on my favorite Toronto band, The Birthday Massacre. Chibi and company are still rattling around in my head, so I thought I’d share the love, starting with the new video for “Superstition.”
Read moreMighty Casey struck out, but Mighty KC almost never does. Kansas City beat the NY Mets last night and lead the World Series 3-1. They can claim their first championship since 1985 with a victory in New York tonight. While I typically don’t give a damn about anything KC-related (Chiefs, Sporting, barbecue, the states of Kansas and Missouri in general)
Read moreHat full of words, words like the ember-lit belly of a Samhain sky
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US culture is like a zombie apocalypse. Andy Borowitz nails it: Scientists: Earth Endangered by New Strain of Fact-Resistant Humans MINNEAPOLIS (The Borowitz Report) – Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.
Read moreA question of black and white
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lullaby pit 