A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Call The Shots EP by Suzi Moon. Listening to Call The Shots – the debut EP by Suzi Moon – there’s no way to deny that listeners will be able to recognize a great similarity to the vocal tone and timbres of Courtney Love, but listeners also won’t be able to deny that the three songs which comprise this EP are more enduring and enjoyable than anything the Hole singer has...

Joe StrummerAssembly It’s strange to think how Joe Strummer’s music is essential, considering his output isn’t exactly large. Or maybe it’s just right and easy to grasp, which is what makes it easier to reckon with. As far as the Clash is concerned, that music is just required listening and everyone should be familiar with it. Yes, all of it, including Cut the Crap. The Clash’s music has withstood the test of time and there are numerous compilations to introduce...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Skin Suit LP by The Bobby Lees. It gets said a lot, but it’s only in the moment when one actually hears the right sound at the right moment that they realize just how powerful it can be. It’s only in the right moment, for example, that a sound can make a listener’s blood boil or their skin crawl – or it can light your brain on fire and completely pervert...

Kent State: Four Dead in Ohioby Derf Backderf Take a really good look at this book and know that to look into Derf Backderf’s Kent State is to look at the real potential in comics. I used to drink the cool-aid just like everyone else and thought that comics meant Batman and Superman, or even worse, just DC or Marvel. But eventually I put on my big boy pants and realized that comics are just a form of expression and...

Acceptance (Southern Reach Series #3)by Jeff VanderMeer The Southern Reach series started out with quite a bang with Annihilation. It was equal parts creepy, compelling, engaging, and suspenseful. It was loaded with interesting characters trying to make sense of a strange situation. That book had me at hello. Then came authority which completely shifted perspective from the internal to the external. Some questions were answered but more were posed. I was a little hesitant about it, but remained on board,...

Aesop RockSpirit World Field Guide I remember the moment that the world of Hip Hop was opened to me. Years ago, I was interviewing Dillinger Four at the Trocadero in Philadelphia, talking to their bass player about music. He said something along the lines of mainstream rap being in a deplorable state; to the effect that standards and quality control didn’t exist anymore — in his opinion. Lucky for me, I had a rap aficionado friend who immediately approved of...

Lord of the Rings Trilogy If you’ve ever wanted an example of New Zealand’s kiwi can-do attitude look no further than the Lord of the Rings. The cultural impact these movies have had on our society has been monumental. It not only brought hobbits, elves, and wizards to the mainstream, it made fantasy cool again. The nerds and jocks could be united as one (that is, until the Marvel universe completely dominated the entire stratosphere of culture). But...

Who Says You’re Dead? Medical and Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concernedby Jacob Appel Who Says You’re Dead is the book we didn’t know we were going to love. This is such a peculiarly delightful book, mostly because it does so many things right. First of all, it’s incredibly interesting and a borderline page-turner; covering topics we didn’t know were right in front of us the whole time. We live in such a protocol-driven world that we don’t always...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Head of the Household LP by Birthday Ass. I remember when I first started listening to indie rock, underground rock and other sorts of music which were a little left-of-center in nature, and it wasn’t always easy. In fact, it was often sort of a gamble; in the days before the internet, there were occasions when you didn’t know exactly what you were going to get, and you just sort of...

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Pretty Garbage LP by Come Closer. While it’s very easy for me to get excited about a new punk band that I’ve never heard before (I’ve been listening to a lot of punk, for a for a lot of years), running across something which makes me excited because I can’t immediately qualify it is instantly attractive because it’s obviously operating within a paradigm I recognize, but there’s something about it that...