David Crosby: Born to be That Guy
Sean MurphyNot sure if anyone was dedicated to being that guy as long or at the same level as David Crosby: decades being that guy: band killer, friendship ender, high-end harmonizer,…
Rock Island: 1989-2019
Fall '89 My good friend, and brother Tony James reminds me that today is the 30th anniversary of Rock Island. It was love at first listen and, in hindsight, the…
I Like To (Re)Watch or, The Movies on My Mind
Celebrating one of my favorite movies, Serpico, I wrote the following: I want—and need—to revisit this movie on an annual basis, because it satisfies many needs. One, it's a masterpiece, so there's…
Routines, Rituals, and Writers
Winston Churchill famously remarked: “My vices protect me but they would assassinate you.” And he managed to achieve a thing or two in his time, decadent proclivities be damned. But…
Welcome to Machine: Why ‘Dead Man’ is Jim Jarmusch’s Masterpiece
Johnny Depp is going to be gone someday, and for those enjoying his work posthumously, an assessment of his enigmatic career—bookended by the cotton candy of 21 Jump Street, and…
Appreciating Ursula K. Le Guin and Cultivating the Right Kind of Rebellion
Sometimes, if you're lucky, you find the right books at the right time; more rarely and therefore more miraculous, the right books find you. After first experiencing (not reading, experiencing)…
Levon Helm: Five Years Gone
There are probably countless ways to talk about what makes a particular artist compelling, and all of them are true. There are not that many ways to articulate how or…
All Hail the King: Chuck Berry Reinvented Music, and America
It’s not important whether or not Chuck Berry “invented” rock ‘n’ roll, and the crucial thing isn’t that he perfected it. It’s that we call rock ‘n’ roll would sound…
Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine: 10 Songs of Righteous Protest
Ian Anderson called it, in '74: The ice-cream castles are refrigerated; The super-marketeers are on parade. There's a golden handshake hanging round your neck, As you light your cigarette on…
Ten Songs From 1967 That Shaped Prog-Rock (Revisited)
1. "Heroes and Villains", The Beach Boys What has tended to get lost or forgotten in the shuffle of sensationalistic trivia (of the infamously aborted SMiLE sessions) is that Wilson…