Semi-Urban Cartography

Sometimes it’s a very tactile thing we associate. Marcel Proust had his madeleine cookies and tea moment that spurred on a copious rush of long forgotten childhood memories (many volumes, to the delight of modern literature the world over). There are chilled times, especially around Christmas that the most hardened of us stop and do [...]

I comfort myself with the lonesome delusion that almost everyone out there anticipates conversations they might have. At some point. Some day maybe. Morning commute fills with anticipated conversations. That ex-girlfriend might happen to run into the same bakery on the same day. Your boss asks what are you truly feeling. The police officer — [...]

Affection. Not every release elicits this rare blush or its companion emotion. So it’s even less frequent when the entire catalog from a particular label brings forth the feeling of joy and discovery. Silber Records is that label for me and it has been for some time (I’ve even forgotten how I discovered them). Their [...]

I have a terrific memory for some visual things. It is especially keen when it has to do with music and my experience in seeking and finding it. Band names in the gritty papers that my Dad and I would pick up around town leap off the page — they still do. Smashing Pumpkins. Big [...]

When I started writing music reviews more than nine years ago, I received albums in CD form. Anywhere from five to thirty per week. They’d arrive in packages and padded mailers, filled with discs and lots of paper: label propaganda, clippings from other media outlets. Sometimes there would be stickers or other goodies to ostensibly [...]

I’m a terrific fan of the angry young man complex. The further I find myself in an inevitable egress from that trait as an element of my life, the more I seek to indulge in its musical trappings to keep it at least close enough to relate to. I’m thirty-three years old and I have [...]

I was sent a message from a friend last night. It was a short email at the end of a day of us bouncing them back and forth. Less than 100 characters, it amounted to a “Tweet” (a phenomenon that I’ve yet to indulge in and may never). He was reporting on his status from [...]

In early June of 2009, I picked up on the Japandroids through their new release, Post Nothing. It feels like a date worthy of memorial. The album came immediately in a digital download form from Polyvinyl records followed a few months later by a 180 Gram LP (with a bevy of other posters, stickers, candy [...]