Month: June 2014

Like a lot of people, I hardly ever actually “talk” on the phone, preferring text messages instead, and unless the incoming call is something I’m expecting or the person calling is a member of my family, I almost never answer my phone when it rings.  The way I figure it, most people who I want…

I’ll go ahead and concede, right here at the beginning, that I’m probably being more than a little unfair to my song-pick for today.  For the most part, I actually think it’s a good song: catchy, peppy, eminently danceable, and with a winning hook. And yet, alas, it annoys the ever-living crap out of me….

A few years ago, I had the very good fortune to see Lucinda Williams play a show at the New Daisy Theater here in Memphis.  She was on tour for her album Blessed and I had for the first (and only) time in my life actually won tickets to the show.  (I was Caller #10 in one of…

Hands down, today’s prompt is the hardest of the whole month.  I’ve written so much about music on this blog over the years that I really don’t know what people wouldn’t expect me to like anymore, except the things that I actually don’t like.  When I first did this Challenge back in 2011, I chose…

Today is the first day in the 30 Day Song Challenge that I think I’m going to register a semi-controversial pick.  I know a lot of people who would rather be dragged out behind the shed, rode hard and hung up wet than hear this song live or recorded. It’s cheesy, it’s corny, it encourages…

I’ve gotten a few days behind on this month’s 30 Day Song Challenge, so today’s entry is going to be semi-brief, partly because I’m trying to catch up but in larger part because there’s really no reason for any of us to spend too much time thinking about what I do in the shower. For…

That couch-full of awesome to your left is my best friend, Dr. Adriel Trott, mugging like a boss at one of my favorite local nightlife hangouts Mollie Fontaine’s. I met her for the first time more than a decade ago in March 2001, when I visited Villanova University as a prospective graduate student.  Due in part to…

I tried– and I mean I REALLY TRIED– not to pick a Beach Boys song today, but all my efforts were for naught.  Asking people to associate a song with “summer” and expecting them not to pick a Beach Boys song is like asking them what they associate with shooting a man in Reno and expecting…

My pick today, perhaps not surprisingly, is a song sung by one of the most heartwrenchingly beautiful female voices in the history of song.  Unless you’re a diehard fan of early-90’s alt-country music, you’ve probably never heard of Maria McKee (or her tragically under-rated and under-appreciated band Lone Justice), which is a damn shame.  I used…

There aren’t many Michael Jackson songs that don’t make me want to dance. But I’m a sucker for the “Little Michael” songs in particular, before he was “MJ” or “The King of Pop” or the tabloid-dubbed “Wacko Jacko.”  Give me the way-back-when, pint-sized wunderkind of The Jackson 5, strutting and mugging and hamming it up in his…