David Correll Studio, Brooklyn, NY

Listening to:
- Hawkwind: Hall of the Mountain Grill [EMI]
- Lau Nau: Nukkuu [Locust]
- M83: Saturdays=Youth [Mute]
- Syble Baer: Colour Green [Isota (LP) / Orange Twin (CD)]

Dusting off:
- Peter Murphy: Deep
- Cypress Hill: Cypress Hill & Black Sunday
- Fugazi: Steady Diet of Nothing (not that it was dusty)
- Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros: Global-a-Go-Go

Listening to:
Firewater: The Golden Hour [Bloodshot]
Ulver: Shadows of the Sun [The End]
Waylon Jennings: Dreaming My Dreams [Buddha reissue]
Neptune: Gong Lake [Table of the Elements]
Roscoe Holcombe: The High Lonesome Sound [Smithsonian Folkways]

Dusting off:
Everything But The Girl: Walking Wounded
Ani Difranco: Dialate
Type O Negative: Bloody Kisses
The Clash: The Clash
The Offspring: Ignition

Listening to:
- Nick Cave: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! [Mute]
- Black Mountain: In the Future [Jagjaguwar]
- Lynyrd Skynyrd: Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd [MCA]
- Portishead: Third [Mercury/Island]
- Junior Brown: 12 Shades of Brown [Curb]
- Califone: Roots & Crowns [Thrill Jockey]

Dusting off:
- The Sisters of Mercy: Floodland (Man, this has been hitting the spot lately)
- The Cars: The Cars

Listening to:
- Naked City: Radio [Avant]
- Earth: The Bees Made Honey in the Lion’s Skull [Southern Lord]
- Death in June: The Rule of Thirds [Soleilmoon]
- Mighty Baby: Mighty Baby [Big Beat UK]
- Bridget St. John: Songs for the Gentle Man [Dandelion]
- It’s a Beautiful Day: It’s a Beautiful Day
- Dale Watson: Cheatin’ Heart Attack [Hightone]

Dusting off:
- Alice in Chains: Dirt
- Soul Coughing: El Oso
- Nirvana: In Utero
- Dr. Dre: The Chronic

Listening to:
- Jackson C. Frank: Blues Run the Game [Castle/Sanctuary]
- Bruce Springsteen: Born in the USA [Columbia]
- The Valerie Project: The Valerie Project [Drag City]
- Billy Joe Shaver: Old Five and Dimers Like Me [Koch]
- The Legendary Pink Dots: Same [Vinyl On Demand]
- Porter Wagoner: Wagonmaster [Anti]
- Six Organs of Admittance: Shelter from the Ash [Drag City]
- Angels of Light: We Are Him [Young Gods]

Dusting off:
- Red Hot Chili Peppers: Mother’s Milk [EMI]
- Electronic: Electronic [Warner Brothers]
- Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Henry’s Dream [Mute]

It brought great sadness to my heart today to hear of the death of the visionary author and dreamer, Arthur C. Clarke. Clarke is best known as the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and collaborating on film of the same name with Stanley Kubrick.

I spent hours upon hours in Perkins and Denny’s in my early 20′s, discussing what the Monolith was, why HAL did what he did, what the Star Child is, analyzing every single shot of both movies, praising Clarke and Kubrick—obsessing, geeking, loving. (more…)

Gary Gygax died last week and the universe did not collapse. This surprises me a little bit, because he built it.

Adam Rogers, senior editor at Wired and contributer to the New York Times, has written a fantastic eulogy to Gary Gygax, co-creator or Dungeons & Dragons, and along with it, an equally fantastic ode on the joy of being a geek. Also make sure to check out Sam Potts’ brilliant accompanying diagram.

I confess: I played role-playing games as a kid. I’ll also confess that I’ve never played Dungeons & Dragons; my parents were of the school that believed it was connected to Satan worship. (While I’m at confession, I might as well also confess that I wore a floor-length cape to my Senior Prom.) (more…)

Last time I checked, we all die.

When I was a teenager, I remember people talking about how teenagers thought they were going to live forever. As I have grown up, I have come to understand both that and my own mortality more and more. Friends and relatives have died, my patch of gray hair is now more than just a patch, and small cuts and bruises don’t heal as well anymore.

We are all given a certain number of days on this earth: statistically, as an American living in 2008, around 28307 — 77.5 years. Certainly, we’re all different, and of course there are things we can do to shorten or extend that. Smoking for 15 years didn’t help, but quitting almost 8 months ago did, for one example. (more…)