A Music Blog for Recovering Mix-Tapers
"Margaret Glaspy could hang with the gutsiest belters around, but chooses not to - which makes her even more magnetic. Like just a small handful of concerts in my life, I left the Green Mill that night feeling sure that I'd witnessed the earliest days of a major artist, one likely not to play such a small venue the next time around, or ever again."
Featuring: Swet Shop Boys, Arvo Pärt, Kevin Morby, Jody Stecher, and more.
Read More"One day at work my co-worker Sammi asked me if I ever listened to Ought. "Are they a punk band?," I asked, likely with barely disguised disgust. "Ah, yeah, I guess so," Sammi replied. "Oh, I don't like 'punk' music," I declared, using actual air quotes, and walked away. What. The. Hell?"
Featuring: Mbongwana Star, Juan Gabriel, Twenty One Pilots, The Avett Brothers, and more.
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"I found myself being incredibly moved by RP Boo's set at Pitchfork. It was getting a glimpse into a genuine Chicago, an organic and utterly unique expression of culture from a part of the world that is reliably portrayed in the negative. It felt like a clear and forceful refutation of the idea that all Chicago's south and west sides have to offer the world is violence and poverty."
Featuring: Xenia Rubinos, The Frightnrs, PWR BTTM, William Bell, and more.
Read More"One of the surprising things I've learned is how much more moving I find dance performances than classical music. Spurred by that experience, I've been trying to develop my classical music knowledge a little. As I suspected, knowing something about the historical/musicological context and technical skeleton of the music really helps."
Featuring: Margaret Glaspy, Vince Staples, Christian Scott, Bacao Rhythm and Steel Band, and more.
Read More"This month was my 40th birthday. Leading up to my birthday, my friend Robb jokingly told me I was 'halfway to 80.' I think it was partly meant as a needle, but it has actually served as a pretty great way to put everything in perspective. "
Featuring: Har Mar Superstar, ANOHNI, Bee Gees, White Denim, and more.
Read More"The greatest perk of my job at the Harris Theater is the opportunity to see some incredible dance. It seems pretty clear to me when a choreographer cares about the music - and it can just wreck a dance for me when either the music is terrible or it just doesn't seem to have anything to do with the dance."
Featuring: Anna Wise, Rachmaninoff, Billy Paul, Big Black Delta, and more.
Read More"It's not like the world needed more evidence of Bowie's artistic courage and genius, but holy shit what a swan song."
Featuring: Mariachi Flor de Toloache, Anderson Paak, Gustav Mahler, Yuck, and more.
Read More"I've been trying to slowly educate myself about Chicago's deep bench of new music ensembles, and I'm betting it will be hard to find any more interesting, virtuosic, and soulful than eighth blackbird."
Featuring: Christian Scott, Yeasayer, Gabby Pahinui, Ron Funches, and more.
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"Lately I've been serving as iTunes valet for my favorite 11-year-old. We sit and search for songs that she wants downloaded on her iPod, with her largely guiding the search and me trying to throw golden nugget in front of her ears every once in a while. To my utter horror and amazement, I found myself feeling a sense of relief when we landed on Britney Spears. It's an experience I would have sworn would never happen."
Featuring: The Arcs, Carlos Malcom, Kronos Quartet, Pell, and more.
Read More"The previous day at Pitchfork, I experienced serious queasiness and cultural disorientation when ASAP Ferg exhorted the crowd to 'put their guns in the air.' What does it mean for a crowd of privileged people to do that in the same city where this 'shooting tracker' shows 29 shootings that weekend, including a 12 year old boy riding a scooter? It's gross."
Featuring: Freddie Gibbs, Mdou Moctar, The Wood Brothers, Jimmy Whispers, and more.
Read More"This month's playlist offers a mini-exploration into the breakdown of genres that seems to have reached a new level of maturity in today's music, especially in the blending of rock and rap that has been lubricated by the ubiquity of electronic music and tools. This also involves evolutionary step in the synthesis of digital & analogue sounds into a new sonic language, making me wonder if that synthesis will be recognized as a signature of this era twenty years from now."
Featuring: Deradoorian, A$AP Rocky, Brahms, Ornette Coleman, and more.
Read More"Never mind the problem with essentially equating music with breakfast cereal or shaving cream, this conversation betrays an even deeper and more troubling misunderstanding in our culture: That who we are as people - what we value - is demonstrated and defined by what we spend money on. That our most important role is that of consumer. It's just the most rotten idea around, and I, personally, am against it with every fiber of my being."
Featuring: B.B. King, Drinks, Mohammed Fairouz, Ry Cooder, and more.
Read More"Listening to the news this month, it was obvious that something terrible was happening in the Mediterranean. Naturally, the indifference and hostility towards immigrants is not the sole expertise of Europeans, although they definitely seem to have perfected an especially potent formula. I like to imagine that the defiance and strength of this song could be a kind of battle cry for those who actually make it off of one of those death boats."
Featuring: Blake Mills, Mbongwana Star, Punch Brothers, Ava Luna, and more.
Read More"I would argue that these two songs (and these two bands) are essentially attacking the same puzzle, but with radically different tools. How does a rock band tackle R&B/Soul in 2015?"
Featuring: Shamir, Norman Blake, GZA, José González, and more.
Read More"It was at that show, watching Courtney Barnett on stage, with her left-handed Strat and her guitar-drums-bass trio, that I first had the strange idea that she reminded me of Kurt Cobain. It's a thought that surprised me, and didn't make a whole lot of sense at first."
Featuring: DJ Raff, Pops Staples. Leadbelly, Ghostface Killah, and more
Read More"Standing in a room singing with a group of people for an hour just resets everything for me, warms up my body and my mind."
Featuring: Aloe Blacc, San Fermin, The Carter Family, DJ Raff, and more.
Read More"I knew that the whole thing was going to be partly a present to myself, but I didn't anticipate just how special it would be to be able to share music like that with them again, to get an unfettered glimpse at the essential glue that binds our family."
Featuring: Sylvan Esso, Open Mike Eagle, Treme Brass Band, D'Angelo, and more.
Read More"For years I've had an (uncomfortably sincere) running joke with my friends about how I don't like old people. Of course, like a snotty teenager who can't understand why the world sucks so bad, the main issue is the chip on my shoulder."
Featuring: N.W.A., Perfume Genius, The Kinks, Run The Jewels, and more.
Read More"I've been shopping for a new car this month, which is partly nerve-wracking, but mostly exciting, especially considering the sorry (and I do mean truly embarrassing) state of my current car. The central organizing principle of the search has been the need to fit my stand-up bass in the car without hanging the scroll out the back window, an arrangement that the coming winter will soon render untenable. 'But, what's that got to do with this song, Josh?' Not much, I'll admit."
Featuring: SBTRKT, DJ Spoko, Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer, and more
Read More"Graceland has always been an outlier in the happy pasture of my love for Paul Simon. I'm not exactly sure why. I think it might have partly to do with the way a lot of the production hasn't really aged well outside of the 80's. Maybe it's the way the album sometimes seems to openly invite the "cultural appropriation" critique (which I consider to be somewhat hackneyed anyway). Maybe it's the saxophone. Okay, it's probably the saxophone. "
Featuring: Robbie Fulks, alt-J, The Soup Dragons, The Coasters, and more.
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