The Entroporium

I saw my friend Tom last night for the first time in umpteen years. I always associate him in my mind with The Jayhawks, and with the flurry of news about the band’s impending breakup, I couldn’t help but give them a shout-out today. The Jayhawks’ last record, Rainy Day Music, has a whole slew [...]

If you’ve been wondering what Tuxedomoon, Depeche Mode, The Cure, PiL, The Dead Kennedys, XTC and The Undertones would sound like as Brazilian music, boy have I got the album for you. And you’re a very strange person to be wondering about that. Two guys get together and decide to do bossa-nova covers of 80s [...]

This proves that you can be a teetotaler and still enjoy George Jones. The Bushes do culture their own way

I Am Kloot’s self-titled second album has been out in the UK for something like 18 months already. It’s finally getting US release with a mini-tour to follow, including a stop at SXSW. It’s a nice undemanding record with some heartfelt performances. If you’re a fan of The Smiths, The Decemberists or Joe Pernice, you’ll [...]

It’s pretty rare when you see a mainstream sportswriter go absolutely ballistic. Gwen Knapp over at the SF Chronicle has some choice words on baseball’s steroids ‘scandal,’ but whodathunk that she could connect it — with justification, yet! — to the Iraq War. An early frontrunner for the best sportswriting I’ve seen in 2005. ‘A [...]

First in an occasional series Raphael Saadiq started out in Oakland’s Tony Toni Tone and went solo after they busted up a few years ago. The break-up was a shame because the band had evolved from Boy2Men-style juvenilia to sophisticated R&B pastiche and was purported to be a terrific live act. House Of Music, which [...]

ESPN.com Hunter S. Thompson Archive Original 1973 New York Times review of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

I was reading on the couch last night with the dog’s head resting on my lap. Ambient music would be nice now, eh? I put on Kompakt’s Pop Ambient 2004 about medium loud. When we got to this track, Ruby immediately sat up and started staring intently at the speakers. With each ‘wave,’ her ears [...]

It’s been bubbling on the blogosphere for a while, but the Tipping Point turned out to be right here at work. Somebody posted a single album on our iTunes network with the tempting question, “Are you an Anniemal?” A pun that horrid had to be checked out, especially in a place that makes its money [...]