Seattle does not have AC in most places. This has proved tough this summer as it has topped 90 a few different times. For someone who loves 40 and cloudy, the sweltering heat slays me. Luckily, music and a cold shower can keep me going on these hot days.
It has been a tough week. I am still dealing with the upcoming family gathering I will not be a part of. I am also weathering a shitstorm of anger from my mother over some trite happenings. Thank the maker for good tunes. It’s pretty much one of the few things keeping me going.
I woke up with the Paul Weller song “From The Floorboards Up” stuck in my head, and it felt like as good a sign as any to talk about his old band in this week’s column.
Though anything overly cliquish, with rules of operation and preconceived notions, makes me squirm, I realized that I had made assumptions of my own about the word “Twee,” and any movement that might be associated with it. So with mixed feelings did I pick up one mouthful of a title: Twee: The Gentle Revolution in […]
This EP is more officially called The Jam, but it is record company Polydor putting two different singles and their B-sides together in one volume. Neither “Absolute Beginners” nor “Funeral Pyre” appear on any of The Jam’s studio albums, but both songs charted at #4 on the UK Singles Chart. The Jam, as an EP, […]
My love for The Jam is massive and unyielding. Paul Weller as the tobacco-saturated, post-punk frontman, Bruce Foxton as the rambling, grooving bass player — I fell in deep for their songs upon first listen. Because of my age and because of my geography, I didn’t appreciate The Jam until around 2007 or so. During […]
Oh, you thought we were done with 30 Years of Music last week, did you? Why, no! Of course we need a bonus round. Because I started this column near the end of 2012, 30 years from that point would be 1982, so it’s only fitting to bring myself back for one more retro round. […]
The Letter T is another jumbo-sized letter because I couldn’t make up my damn mind. So many good songs, so much with which to sing along. Let’s get to it: