Autumn Souvenir

Allendale, New Jersey. Not exactly a hotbed for social activism. Jammed in the upper right corner of New Jersey, this is where I was raised. Save a few years in Southern California that ended in my parents divorcing, I spent most of my first 18 years in this little suburban town. Almost entirely white, the politics were conservative and the worldview was limited. Reagan was championed and topics such as race relations and inequality in America were largely ignored. Most in the town had "made it." My household was a bit on the fringes. My stepfather, quite possibly the hardest working man I've ever known, was a town police officer (not great during those high school years) and put in as much overtime as the human body could take. Our home was quiet. I spent most of my pre-teen and teen years in local parks playing basketball. We lived right across the street from the town ballpark, where I'd shoot hundreds and hundreds of jumpers every night. Basketball pulled me in. A...

8.8 When I attended my first SXSW, in 1999, there was no band I wanted to see more than Damnations, TX. Fronted by sisters Amy Boone and Deborah Kelly, their debut,   Half Mad Moon , had the unlucky timing of being released in 1998, a year in which I probably bought 100 CDs and alt.country, a genre that the Damnations sorta fell into, was on supercharge. But they crept through, and when I finally got a chance to see them, if memory serves, in that huge park in Austin, I was thunderstruck. Those harmonies. The guitars. The songs were just perfect. Mind you, 1999 was wayyyy pre-Interactive, and SXSW Music was still home to up-and-comers. Damnations, TX were one of about 50 bands I intended to see. Bottle Rockets, Joe Henry, Spoon, Meat Puppets, Josh Rouse, Slobberbone, Calexico, Lucinda Williams, Freakwater, Flaming Lips. And I'm just getting started. But there was something about the Damnations, TX. Half Mad Moon was just a blowout, jaw-dropping debut. And as I'm listenin...

9.4 Across my record collection, there are maybe 40-50 records that I believe deserve a nod alongside the likes of  Born To Run , Highway 61 Revisited and Exile on Main Street, yet never really made it beyond a core group of followers. Over the next year or so, I'm going to shed a little light on some of those records. These aren't good records; these are classics, somehow lost, having never found their commercial stride.   If I span my entire collection, there isn't a record more deserving of a spot on this list more than the Philadelphia-foursome Marah's debut. I heard this record not long after its release and it immediately lurched my life in a million different directions. This was Mick and Keith but in the 90s. Before I could even catch my breath, I was driving from NYC to Philly nearly every weekend to see the Brothers Bielanko, Ronnie and Danny. Thrust into the center of the already brimming alt.country scene, Marah stretched across the Americana plain an...

I learned via Facebook this morning that Whiskeytown's Strangers Almanac turned 20 yesterday. By about a thousand-fold, people probably know the name Ryan Adams more than they do Whiskeytown. In the 17 years since Adams disbanded Whiskeytown, nothing he's released touches his work with Caitlin Cary, Steven Terry, Phil Wandscher, Skillet Gilmore and Brad Rice in Whiskeytown. And across their impressive, yet sloppy catalogue, they hit their stride and released one masterpiece, Strangers Almanac . I was 23 and living in New York when SA was released. And looking back, 1997 was, without question, the best year for music in my lifetime. Stand out records by Old 97's, Richard Buckner, Son Volt, The Jayhawks, Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse and close to a hundred others, inspired my friends and I to literally live in the New York rock clubs. Irving Plaza, Mercury Lounge, Bowery, Tramps, Bottom Line -- we were often out 4-5 nights a week, many nights until the sun ro...

1 Lucinda Williams / Car Wheels on a Gravel Road (1998) 2 Emmylou Harris / Wrecking Ball (1995) 3 Gillian Welch / Revival (1996) 4 Aimee Mann / The Forgotten Arm (2005) 5 Damnations TX / Half Mad Moon (1997) 6 Aretha Franklin / I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You (1967) 7 Aimee Mann / Bachelor No. 2 (2000) 8 Cat Power / The Greatest (2006) 9 Kelly Willis / What I Deserve (1999) 10 Joan Shelley / Over and Even (2015) 11 Gillian Welch / Soul Journey (2003) 12 Emmylou Harris / Red Dirt Girl (2000) 13 Liz Phair / Whitechocolatespaceegg (1998) 14 Neko Case / Middle Cyclone (2009) 15 Alice Coltrane / Journey In Satchidinanda (1971) 16 Camera Obscura / Let's Get Out of This Country (2006) 17 Kelly Willis / Easy (2002) 18 Lucinda Williams / Lucinda Williams (1988) 19 Freakwater / Old Paint (1995) 20 Victoria Williams / Loose (1994) 21 Gillian Welch / Time (The Revelator) (2001) 22 Beth Orton / Central Reservation (1999) 23 Lucinda Williams / World Without Tears (...

Travel bans. Insurance catastrophe. Sexism. Racism. Mocking the disabled. Cuba. Climate change. The wall. Russia. Endless lies. I could on for, literally, ever. This is the most disengaged I've been from politics and the daily happenings in DC in at least two decades. The fact that 62M Americans voted for this monster remains, now many months in, impossible for me to stomach. I simply can't understand the utter lack of humanity, decency and empathy that has swept over this country. We should be utterly embarrassed and disgusted by this man's "leadership." He is a bad human being and he governs without a sliver of self reflection or integrity. And I'm embarrassed to say that I'm so distraught by where we're at that my only solution has been to tune out. Turn it off. I see an article that includes his name and I pass. Every time. So what do I do? Or what have I done? Well, as many have responded, I'm trying to be a better person in my daily life....

When I lived in San Francisco, I went through a period where, at least once a week, I'd listen to an entire record without any interruptions. No checking of the phone, nothing. I can still recall what it felt like to listen to Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska like that. The songs and stories came alive. It was like watching Indian Runner but being inside of the movie. Like many short-term ideas, after a few months, it faded. I kept reminding myself about the exercise, but I never went back. It's probably been about five years. I mean, I still listen to music every day, but it's often how we all listen: headphones on the run, in the car, in the office, in the background. Then, this evening I got home after a sweltering day in the sun, on a day that I never do well with, and I saw this gorgeous Big Star record sitting on my shelf. This is the "test pressing" that was released on Record Store Day 2011. I remember waiting on the Amoeba line in SF with only ...