Bill Buckner, Mookie Wilson and Me
Sean MurphyI've never been able to appreciate the aesthetic perfection (that is to say, the perfection of baseball's most imperfect play; it's most jarringly incongruous moment) because it was too painful.…
Happy Halloween: Black Sabbath Style
This is (Black) Magic. Sabbath in '70, live. I've had plenty to say about Sabbath (here, here and here). If you are not the link-clicking sort, here are some key…
Drag the Dream Into Existence: Reassessing Rush’s Masterpiece
Moving Pictures, Thirty Years On Every band, if they are lucky, is able to create a definitive work—a document that embodies their unique qualities. Most great bands, at some point…
Pharoah Sanders: Village of the Pharoahs/Wisdom Through Music
Raise your hand if you’ve been holding out hope that more of Pharoah Sanders’ early ‘70s catalog would finally get remastered and/or released for the first time on CD. Anyone?…
Got Floyd?
So...you may have heard that the Pink Floyd discography (all 14 albums, pictured above) is getting the remastered (or re-remastered or, if you really want to be technical re-re-remastered) treatment. This…
Keeping Hope Alive (Updated!)
10/17/11: Return of Mazzy? Apparently, it's true. (h/t to the man who surfs the 'net like a super hero, my beloved Meatbull.) This news excites me. (As does the news…
The Michael Giles Mad Band: In the Moment
Let’s say you’re a drummer and you happened to play on two of the seminal progressive rock albums (King Crimson’s In The Wake of Poseidon and, along with fellow recent…
John Zorn: Magister Artium Gandensis 2011
I've written a great deal about John Zorn (in some detail here and here, and his name is appropriately dropped and checked in the course of discussions of other jazz musicians,…
On Worrying*
Two things we all became experts in during those last five years: taking care of my mother and worrying. We were authorities; we worried all the time, about everything. The…
R.I.P., Steve Jobs
While I'm congenitally disinclined to join the choruses of hagiographers anointing this outstanding marketer, salesman and genius as some type of saint, I'll certainly throw my hat in the very…