There are a couple of reasons why I lump these two bands together.  They both put out incredibly catchy indie pop music.  They both have a distinctive red-headed female vocalist who is paired with an overshadowed hook-driven male bandmate (who may or may not have red hair, but I wouldn’t know ’cause I have no [...]

This blog gives me a place to write about some of things I really enjoy — music, movies, TV and books.  It’s really that simple.  (At least it is that simple now, though the mere fact that I have a blog may lead to blog creep down the road when I start writing about other [...]

Spend some time with me and my Ipod and you’ll find that I have a soft spot for covers.  A good cover, in my mind, is recognizable as the original song, yet is a completely new animal.  A good cover has evolved.  Suddenly, you can’t quite imagine anyone but the new artist singing it (even [...]

I read Life of Pi about eight years ago when it first came out. When I pulled it back off the shelf to write this post, my first thought was where the heck has Yann Martel been. Of course, there are many stories of authors turning out a masterpiece then disappearing. But [...]

The season finale of Heroes is tonight.  I am relieved.
Do you have this problem?  You’ve been watching a certain show for a while.  When it first came on, you were excited.  It was really good.  You wanted to spend time with it.  You couldn’t wait to see it again.  You hoped it felt the same [...]

Published years apart, these two books seem like companion pieces to me, sharing a literary landscape of life and death, memory and impermance. But, then again, lots of books occupy that crowded plot of land. What is intriguing to me about these two books (and also clearly to Vintage, which published both of them) is the surprisingly similar style in which both stories are told.

There are certain things that make me feel old. One of those things is the idea that bands used to make albums. My musical awareness began when you could still buy LPs. Side one had different songs than side two — and someone thought about what should be where. A sides, [...]

There is a certain trick to being simultaneously angry and melodic.  I’d say that Linkin Park and Rage Against the Machine are good examples of this.  Nine Inch Nails too.  Against Me! pulls off the same trick on the album New Wave.  For a couple of months after I bought this one, I could not [...]

OK, so sometimes people ask you, “what’s your favorite [fill in the blank].”  I’ll be honest.  That’s usually when my mind actually does go blank.  I know there are things I really like, but as I’m searching for an answer, I tend to spit out something that not only is not my favorite [blank], but [...]

Sometimes I wonder why some songs are huge hits and other songs are ignored.  It just doesn’t make sense why Float On by Modest Mouse goes Top 40 and Autoclave by The Mountain Goats (see below) doesn’t.  They seem equally catchy to me.  I suppose it has something to do with marketing and dumb luck.
Anyway, [...]