Archive for March 2008
The Electric City
Greetings from The Electric City. I’m writing you tonight from Room 202 of the Lackawanna Station Hotel where, through the thin walls of my room, piped in Muzak like drones away like The Lawrence Welk Show. The entire town has that feel, really: as if time forgot it sometime around 1957. Truth is, it was…
Read MoreSerendipity, Baby
Brace yourself; the following story may blow your mind. Just this past Sunday, Nada front man Jason Walsmith and I were sitting around his Beaverdale, Iowa, living room recovering from the previous night’s show and preparing for the next. We’re watching TV when he said, “Lemme’ show you this documentary.” He surfed around his Tivo…
Read MoreIn The Roaring Traffic’s Boom (Day And Night)
Thirty (or so) years ago, my parent’s took Chris and me to a traveling production of “Annie” at Chicago’s Shubert Theater. Two moments from that matinee stick with me to this day. The first is the sheer terror I felt shrinking into my seat as Mrs. Hannigan screamed at the orphans, “You’re gonna clean this…
Read MorePaying My Rent Every Day In The Tower Of Song
I’m not sure this’ll make a ton of sense, but the weekend kinda’ f*cked my shit up a little bit. As always, when we weren’t actually singing, Jason and I spent our time talking about songs, songwriting, and the music business. We’re an odd pair in such conversations. Though he dabbles in politics and has…
Read MoreRaining Jane: On Any Given Sunday
Forget that the music industry doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing with itself. Between MySpace, iTunes, ProTools, Twitter, YouTube and the rest, bands don’t need major labels anyway. They’re doin’ it for themselves. In some strange way, 2008 may as well be 1908, or 1808. America’s highways are packed with minstrels and troubadours: folk-rock,…
Read MoreClose Your Eyes And Start To See
The last time I stood in front of a thousand people with a guitar in my hands and sang, I’d rehearsed. I’ll be honest: I regretted the ambition of my scheduled 36-hour, New York to Des Moines trip the instant my clock radio sounded at 3:45 Saturday morning. A cold drizzle was falling on Tenth…
Read MoreOutside, It’s America
Frankly, I’m surprised shit isn’t tossed at that thing more often. Military Island — a red, white and blue neon-stiped, brush-steel box — sits astride a wedge-shaped slab of concrete between at 43d Street between Seventh and Broadway. It is, quite literally, The Crossroads of the World. There are no fences, no barricades, no sentries…
Read MoreWaiting At Graceland (First In Line) – MP3
“I ran down Elvis Presley Boulevard beneath a sky bruised purple and gray and orange at the edges,” I scribbled in a journal entry dated October 21, 1996. “It’s the type of sky that removes roofs indescriminently.” “It’s rumbling now, waiting to break, I’m sure, just as I step from the tour bus to the…
Read MoreGoing To Graceland
“It always rains when I’m at Graceland.” Thus began my journal entry (the old fashioned paper kind) on Monday, October 21, 1996. The dateline was Memphis, Tennessee. Just thirty-six hours earlier, I’d hatched a half-baked (actually, I was really baked), last-minute plan to squander the weekend prior to my start date at MTV News on…
Read MoreSixteen Thousand Nine Hundred And Three
I posted to this site every single day in February. Midway through the month, I realized that I had a streak going, and resolved to see it through. There were plenty of opportunities to regret the goal, usually when — as Abbi went to bed — I remembered that I hadn’t posted yet. Instead of…
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