Wanted to do something different today. It’s my birthday, and I already built a playlist last week celebrating a bunch of great music that came out during the year of my birth. But the music of 1973 isn’t what made me into who I am now – that’s an ever-growing, ever-evolving store of musical moments and memories. And so I wanted to make another playlist, of the songs that inspired me, moved, me, marked significant moments of my life.
Continue reading “52 Reasons Why”
I created one of those Smart Playlists on Apple Music that would tracks all the music I listened to for the last week. And then I realized it wouldn’t track any of the vinyl, CDs, or cassettes I was listening to. And then I tried to stream the physical media while I listened to it, and realized a lot of what I buy (especially the Japanese jazz/fusion) isn’t typically on the streaming platforms – that’s why physical media is so important, y’all. And then David Lynch passed away, and I spent a ton of time living in Julee Cruise’s world, so that’s going to bookend this week’s edition of (Un)Focused Definition.
Continue reading “(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 33: Where My Ears Went This Week”
Hey…it took Tool 13 years to follow up 10,000 Days, so I figure another six for me to actually get around to really listening to it isn’t going to bother anyone. And honestly, I’m glad for the extra time because all the insane hype and commentary around what Fear Inoculum turned out to be versus was fans wanted it to be was more than a bit distracting and intense. And not just the album: with the rise of YouTube “content creators” it seems everyone has an opinion about the band – they were only good on the EP, they write music that makes you have to “think” too much – I literally just watched a video where that was the complaint. It’s too complex to have any real emotion – that’s another I just saw. I needed to get away from all the rhetoric and just sit back and listen. And guess what? It’s a Tool album, which means for better or for worse to your ears it’s exactly what Maynard, Adam, Justin and Danny wanted it to be. I like it.
Continue reading “Tool: Fear Inoculum (2019)”
Welcome back to (Un)Focused Definition, a weekly series where I put together a playlist of tunes around a theme of my choosing. I’ve been thinking about the format for this thing, and we’re going to keep it pretty short, focusing on the music with maybe a little commentary about the selected tracks. This week we’re looking at recent acquisitions. I just turned 51 a few days ago, and surprise (not): most of my gifts were records. We’re all over the map with jazz, classic rock, prog, and black metal so let’s build this thing and get the weekend started, huh?
Continue reading “(Un)Focused Definition Ep. 1: Recent Acquisitions”
Consuming the Tangible 