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I woke to the flash of lightning, then lay there waiting on the thunder. The alarm clock read just 5:06, but I couldn’t go back to sleep; there was too much on my mind. I thought about work (as — it seems — always). I thought about Chris and my show tonight. I needed to…

Ryan calls it a “cajon.” The rest of us call it “the box.” Chris and I first spotted young Ryan Vaughn bangin’ on the box at Rockwood Music Hall a few years ago. It wasn’t just the box that impressed, though, it was his use of percussion. I had recently seen Aimee Mann perform, and…

Growing up in suburban Chicago, a field trip to the Adler Planetarium was a special occasion. The Adler was built in 1930 by concert violinist turned Sears Roebuck & Co. VP Max Adler. It was the first planetarium built in the Western Hemisphere, and is the oldest in existence today. Its Zeiss projector reproduces the…

The MTV News team is off to Chicago for Lollapalooza. Or, we would be if there weren’t a plane broken down on the runway that forced our plane — that was coming from Chicago — to divert to JFK. So the photo is TV’s Tim Tim Kash resting up for his MIA, Fratellis, and Silver…

There’s a lot going on. I just walked in from Chris Abad‘s place. He lives exactly one song away. Which is to say, about two blocks. In tonight’s case, those two blocks were U2’s “Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car.” Anyway, Chris and I were rehearsing for next Wednesday’s Rockwood Music Hall gig: 8/8…