We interviewed John Cale in issue #156 around the time of his previous release, Mercy. He has just released POPtical Illusion, a collection of synth and keyboard heavy tunes that carry a heavy, and at times angry message about the state of the world. That is not to say that that Cale has lost all hope and there is optimism that we can still bring about change. POPtical Illusion was produced by Cale along with longtime artistic collaborator Nita Scott.
I received several CDs recently, notably the Monsters of Folk (Jim James, M. Ward, Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis) and Porcupine Tree's The Incident, that I really wanted to listen to but was unable to hear. Why? Because these promo discs were...
Via the Village Voice and meta-via Brooklyn Vegan comes the tragic news that the NYC recording studio operated by Daptone Records was burgled last night, with a remarkable amount of main brain Gabe Roth's vintage gear lost. Even...
This is a fascinating article about a brand new study in human auditory perception that is showing that there have been "naive" applications of mathematical formulas onto our understanding of human auditory perception. I cannot claim to...
I opened my commercial recording studio (Jackpot! Recording) in 1997, after years of simultaneously having a busy home studio while working day jobs to pay the rent. Making this leap to a full-time recording engineer/studio owner was terrifying. I...
During this year's SXSW music festival someone asked me how many times I'd been to Austin, Texas, for this event. I had no idea. Eight? Ten? Since the mid-'90s I've certainly attended many times, most as a panelist, but always as a music fan. And...
I liked your end rant - what they didn't tell you in school - and I generally concur. For better or worse, I generally do things differently than the way students are taught in other classes, an approach that is perhaps more likely to cause trouble,...
Thom and John had a great time at Loop 2018, so we wanted to let everybody know that Loop 2020 is open for registration now. This event always sells out way in advance, so don’t...
I recently found myself diving back into the Little Feat catalog, and came across a documentary on the band's founder, guitarist, and frontman Lowell George, called Feats First - The Life & Music of Lowell George. Music docs, especially on the...
In line with Andy Hong's list of gear (issue #66) he's reviewed in the past that he still finds amazing, here's a list of stuff I was using this last month that I think deserves special credit for the amount of times I fall back on these pieces and...