A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Arthur Buck’s self-titled debut album. Full honesty and disclosure: I’ve been a really big fan of R.E.M. for a really long time and approached Arthur Buck’s self-titled debut album with no small amount of trepidation. I didn’t want to risk sullying my memory of Peter Buck – but it turns out I needn’t have worried. In fact, by crossing Buck’s instantly recognizable guitar tone (which, let’s be honest, helped inspire almost an...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the “Just Business” LP by Bass Drum of Death. Even upon one’s first play through Bass Drum of Death’s fourth album, listeners will quickly be able to note that its title is a complete fucking misnomer. Nothing about this album is “Just Business”; it’s impossible to not take this music personally because it is that good and does mark a spectacular potential turning point for the band. Simply put, “Just Business” rocks...
All The Answers by Michael Kupperman I didn’t know anything about Michael Kupperman. Apparently, he’s a big deal in comics. Shame on me for not knowing that. But, apparently there’s something Kupperman didn’t know about his dad either, and that’s that he was a big deal in the world of Quiz shows. A very big deal. You like my segway? I am. But no, seriously. Kupperman’s father never spoke about his childhood because he had a secret. It defined him...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime LP by Family Of The Year. It’s funny how, as similar to one another as every Family Of The Year has been to date, Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime feels like a significant departure and/or move forward for the band. That Goodbye Sunshine Hello Nighttime is the group’s first album for Reprise after enjoying a celebrated 2LP+1EP stretch at Nettwerk is irrelevant – Family Of The Year has...
Documentary Now! Season One and Two The mere existence of a show like Documentary Now! is baffling. Because, let’s break it down. It’s spoofing documentaries by recreating them and adding a new twist. In order for this to work, the show must 1) understand the subject matter (the film it is spoofing) 2) develop an intriguing enough twist to reinvent the documentary 3) have actors who are versatile enough yet bring their own sensibilities to the roles and 4)...
Fear City: New York’s Fiscal Crisis and the Rise of Austerity Policis Kim Phillips-Fein (Metropolitan Books) Books about financial crises shouldn’t be this exciting. Books about financial crises that happened 40 years shouldn’t be this exciting. But, somehow, Kim Phillips-Fein has achieved the impossible. One would think a book dealing with such a serious and complicated subject would read like dry homework, but Phillips-Fein has managed to tell the story in a riveting way. I don’t want to say that...
The Evolution of Beauty Richard Prum (Doubleday Books) Richard Prum seems to think he’s a Richard Dawkins type, which he’s not, and that’s probably at the heart of the problem with the Evolution of Beauty. What could have been a book that elevates our awareness of the world we live is instead just a clunky fragmented book. First of all, Prum is the arrogant showoff type. Richard Dawkins is too, but Prum seems not to notice that he keeps it...
Super Troopers 2 Whether you like it or not, you gotta admire the underdog nature of Super Troopers. It’s a comedy that’s aged surprisingly well that fortunately never fell victim to many of the popular comedies of today. It’s not dependent of cameos for its performances but focuses on writing. Instead of relying on a “remember them?” neuron firing when we see an actor on screen, it instead focuses on its script actually being funny on the page...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the The Old New Me / Times Like This 2LP reissue by Slim Dunlap. Of course, after the collapse, crash and burn of The Replacements in 1991, it was almost instantly hoped that somebody in the band would begin producing more music but nobody looked at Slim Dunlap to be the first one out of the gate. Dunlap was, after all, the replacement guitarist in The Replacements – that was the joke...
David Sedaris Calypso I’ll tell you, the hardest thing I’ve had to do at this point in my life is buying a house. Stressful doesn’t quite begin to describe it, and that’s considering that I had it pretty easy. I was so green going into it and the process moved so quickly that I was constantly playing catchup, feeling like I was missing some important details or new obstacle kept presenting themselves. We need a what now? How much is...