I don’t know the exact release date, but I do know that it was right about ten years ago that I first heard OK Computer.
In May of ‘97, I had just finished my MFA in Creative Writing at UNC Greensboro. But I had no job prospects. I’d had a job lined up for me […]

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I love 5-string banjo. I wish I knew how to play it … maybe one day I’ll muster the patience and discipline to learn. But in the meantime, I can listen to unbelievably cool stuff like this. I can’t quite explain how happy I am to hear Steve Martin picking again … his albums where […]

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I must seem Second-Life obsessed… there really are other things going on in my life. (Getting over a horrible horrible cold, for one.)
But this seems to be the week of Second Life. They just hit a million registered users … and their media coverage has hit the tipping point. It’ll be amazing if […]

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I often wondered what sorts of brain chemicals were involved in music enjoyment — I’ve definitely noticed similar emotional effects between songs I enjoy (especially cranked up while driving) and other things like caffeine. Nice quick interview at Wired News about it.
WN: What are we learning about the link between music and emotion in […]

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Wired 13.07: God’s Little Toys
Today, an endless, recombinant, and fundamentally social process generates countless hours of creative product (another antique term?). To say that this poses a threat to the record industry is simply comic. The record industry, though it may not know it yet, has gone the way of the record. Instead, the recombinant […]

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Steve Almond is a guy I knew in my MFA Program. He’s (I think) the single most published writer from our little graduating class of ten or so people. Like, he’s an actual writer, making a living as a writer (and teaching).
Anyway, this interview he did with pre-teen-ish girl band Smoosh is fun: The […]

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An Open Letter to U2
It’s like this. U2 has made some great music, even in the last 15 years or so. But honestly, they stopped being a rock and roll band when they cancelled a chunk of their Zooropa tour because their GIANT SCREEN TV BROKE.
I’m glad somebody is posting their opinion like on […]

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Jeff Tweedy of Wilco makes some points about music online, at Wired:
Tweedy: We live in a connected world now. Some find that frightening. If people are downloading our music, they’re listening to it. The internet is like radio for us.
WN: You don’t agree with the argument that file sharing hurts musicians’ ability to earn a […]

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Man In Black Dead at 71
Love is a burning thing,
It makes a firey ring,
Bound by wild desire,
I fell in a ring of fire,
I fell into a burning ring of fire,
I went down, down, down and the flames went higher,
I burned, burned, burned,
A ring of fire, a ring of […]

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Sometimes it’s fun just to see who on the net bothers to post lines from one of your favorite Tom Waits songs: Google Search: she pulls a razor from her boot and a thousand pigeons fall around her feet

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