WHO: Down By Law WHAT: Lonely Town WHY: One of my loves when I was coming up in my punk days that I keep falling for every time they release a new album. As one of the best bands to surface from the Epitaph 90s era, Down By Law has kept going for more than 30 years, still releasing their own brand of pop punk. It’s also a very special era in Down By Law history as the punkrockacedmyfightsong lineup...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Plizzken’s …And Their Paradise Is Full Of Snakes LP. The fact of the matter is that, in punk circles, no one wants to be a “middle of the road” kind of band. Why? Well, as Dwight Eisenhower once said, “The middle of the road is all the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters,” and it is in those gutters (or teetering on the brink of them) where...
Enoughby Kurt Morris Kurt Morris is a longtime contributor to Razorcake Magazine, writer, and all-around nice guy. I’m proud to call him a friend. I am particularly proud of his history with mental illness and how his writing is focused on raising awareness and telling his story. He has already written a book partially dealing with these traumatic events in his life called My War where he breaks down Black Flag’s album and how the songs relate to him. His...
Star Trek: DiscoverySeason 3 Boy I sure do love Star Trek, but over the years it’s becoming evident that Star Trek doesn’t necessarily love me back. And I’m talking about Discovery here. It’s not that Discovery isn’t “real Star Trek,” it’s just that it hasn’t been able to find a model and stick to it. And I’m being very generous here. It’s like a relationship with an ex-girlfriend right now, where it started out looking great, but slowly I found...
Nobody Bob Odenkirk is known as a powerhouse of comedy. Over the past 3 decades he’s been in just about every comedy project worth watching. Few people get the craft quite like him. As someone who had been an underdog through most of his career, it’s been interesting watching him blow up as a serious actor after his role as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. Odenkirk is becoming quite the household name. But an action star? Are you serious?...
A deeper look at the grooves pressed into Pop Evil’s Versatile LP. Okay, this first observation of what Pop Evil is offering with their sixth album, Versatile, doesn’t actually have anything to do with the music pressed into the vinyl, but it would be easy to extrapolate an impression of the merits of this album, how it’s presented and the potential difference between “how it’s presented” and “what you get” from it. On the (surprisingly large) hype sticker which adorns...
It Never Ends: A Memoir with Nice Memories!by Tom Scharpling I don’t think I’ve ever waited so long in anticipation for a book. Being a Best Show listener for years now (which would still make me a junior, by most standards), I’ve been looking forward to this book since host Tom Scharpling first mentioned it in 2019. I can’t believe it’s been so long, but here it is, It Never Ends is among us. Listeners of the Best Show know...
Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 1 What can I possibly say about Star Trek that hasn’t been said already. If you don’t know what it is, get a clue and get on board. I was very late to the party but have gone very deep. Star Trek is a warm fuzzy place I don’t think I’ll ever want to leave. For a franchise that has done so much over so many years the idea of a Lower Decks show...
Project Hail Maryby Andy Weir I love me a good sci-fi book. Especially hard sci-fi. And Andy Weir’s books are definitely hard sci-fi. I was a fan of the Martian mostly because of the engaging and fun story, but also because Weir asks his audience to think. I had high hopes for his new book Project Hail Mary, and it certainly delivered, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much thinking this book was going to make me do. One...
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...