Someday

I was just starting my two-year career as assistant music director at WSBU when the Strokes released the now-classic Is This It.

Along with the Stripes’ White Blood Cells, It was a milestone for making garage and indie rock a mainstream phenomenon.

Can’t Forget the Motor City

La La Love You, Pretty Baby

I’ve been toting around a prenatal profile of my handsome son for about five months now and I have to admit, he’s one beautiful baby.

Just Beautiful

While dealing with a bout of the occasional sleeplessness that comes with dad-to-be jitters, I found solace in one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard — and it wasn’t even playing at the time.

Modern Man

So, this headphone masterpiece isn’t all about songs and devices of yore. I may be losing my edge like so many others whose jobs and families have cut into music geekery. But, I’m certainly not living in the past when it comes to music.

Fisher-Priceless

A good part of this project is about digging through the crates and unlocking forgotten musical gems that have have gathered cobwebs over time.

Hidden beneath the dust of memory are aural treasures propped up on dorm room cinderblocks, wedged into a car visor, locked in a Magnavox tape deck and, perhaps most influentially, balanced on the top of a bright blue plastic platter.

Mix for My Unborn Son

My wife and I have been on quite a journey during her first six months of pregnancy: excitement, worry, work and more worry. Needless to say, I think a lot about my unborn son and before he officially arrives on this planet sometime in July, I think there’s some music he needs to hear.

Post Rock Radio No. 13

This fine quasi-weekly companion to Post Rock kicks off the fall with some summer favorites. Listen to the show, get the songs below and share some of your fair weather favorites.

Live: Rocky Votolato @ SUNY Oswego

It’s hard not to think of kindred Northwest songcrafter Elliott Smith when Seattle’s Rocky Votolato starts his strumming.

Like the late, legendary Smith, Rocky’s oft-somber tunes are spare, but full of vivid description and gut-socking introspection. His melodies have a poppy sweetness that gave much of the Friday night audience in Oswego, N.Y., a thoughtful tilt and nod throughout the performance.

10 x 10: A decade in review

Yep. It’s April. Oh, shut the hell up.

Either I’m way too lazy or just dangerously over-thoughtful, but I can’t crank out any kind of best-of until far after the ides have past.

I usually need several weeks to sort out 12 months worth of life-shaping sound. A decade? It takes several months to figure out what the hell just happened.