I love the picture of him squeezing the last little droplets of creativity from the planet

For the opening act at the mini-Sphere I nominate mini-Bono

Now that’s a funky Blue Note

Dear Apple Music: Please fix artwork sync in the iPhone. Kthxbai Pat

Out of step with Andy Milligan; I can’t stop thinking about THE WEIRDO, which I wrote about @spectrumculture.bsky.social several years ago spectrumculture.com/2021/09/20/r...

Paila, a Chilean sandwich place on Park Rd in my old neighborhood. It was maybe open two years and closed more than 10 years ago, but I still think about the chemilico, pictured below with TWO eggs

N.b.: Joni Mitchell did not make that UMD show; and I think that’s the Lolla where Pavement got pelted

Good morning from the animated horror figure that looks remarkably like me down to the lemony manboobs

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Incontinent #CheapenANovelByAddingAWordThatDemonstratesTheAnxietyOfAging

Never thought I’d see the day a new Al Green lp would have two Lou Reed covers tidal.com/album/481911...

RIP the ability to use custom text in bitmojis

Loleatta Holloway came from gospel and became a disco queen. I hear more of the former here, and it doesn’t quite work; a little too much drama and too drawn out, like the closing ballad that might have been the best thing here if it wasn’t 6:11. But I can’t completely dismiss it.

As soon as I heard that intro I thought, “Funky Funky”

This seemed promising at first, spiritual jazz morphing into AOR led by a quirky vocalist. But it’s a little warped, which doesn’t help the quirks. Sheila Landis, Singer/Songwriter (SheLan 1983)

Morning Jamal

For @spectrumculture.bsky.social I wrote about the 1961 exploiter FIEND OF DOPE ISLAND, which simmers at the unlikely intersection of Eastern Bloc playmates and the 1928 Olympics spectrumculture.com/2026/01/14/f...

Between this and the talking animals, Anna Karenina is more fun than I expected

When spiritual jazz morphs into AOR youtu.be/3BKKdUQFL_8

I accidentally ordered a salad and got a cookie on purpose; this is what communication was like before cell service

If you can read this, thank your landline

Where is the blu-ray of Obayashi’s DRIFTING CLASSROOM

Crooked Beat, a really awesome record store in Del Ray, Alexandria is having a horrible problem with flooding, and it's damaged a lot of stock. They don't have a lawyer licensed in VA, and they need one. If you can help out, I know they really would appreciate it. www.facebook.com/share/r/1KRo...

My first Albert Pyun, and I swear Andy Milligan’s THE WEIRDO, made three years later, is a riff on it

Most anticipated book of the year? The latest from Attila Veres, whose essential @valancourtbooks.bsky.social collection The Black Maybe kickstarted my horror jones

Van Eps played guitar on In the Wee Small Hours, and his own guitar-drums-marimba album is pleasant mid-century dentist office music. George Van Eps, Seven-String Guitar (Capitol 1967)

Easy listening inspirational music that was not easy to listen to, but the folk pop goes over better than the banjo. Still: lambs! Lamb, Songs for the Flock (Messianic, 1978)

KOLN 75: I could say the shaggy narrative and self-consciousness is like the compromised Bosendorfer. But it’s Vera (and Mala Emde) who makes the movie work at all, not Keith Jarrett.

So why isn’t there a Criterion O LUCKY MAN? Does it have something to do with licensing Alan Price?

Friends over the years

Today in things I didn't know I needed but absolutely need, and more extended: dub(bish) Sade www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZzc...

First cassette of 2026

I was some amazing things during my trip to Bologna today but this was the best.

For no reason, appreciating that one of Johnny Marr’s great achievements is making Bo Diddley morose

At the last minute I was recruited for kingship after mass today. I think I was Balthasar. Happy Epiphany (observed)!

Punch-Drunk Love Boogie Nights Phantom Thread Magnolia Licorice Pizza Hard Eight The Master TWBB OBAA Inherent Vice

Fantastic Something - If She Doesn't Smile (It'll Rain) [Greece, Folk/Jangle Pop] (1983) https://redd.it/1psjn1v https://youtu.be/PNrZLJdVbB0

asia.si.edu/whats-on/eve... Iranian film festival starts @ Museum of Asian Art w/ It was Just an Accident , a good 2025 film by Panahi about seeking retribution

The first mail call of the New Year is more all-over-the-place than usual. N.b.: the Martha Raye comp is the only vinyl appearance of her Bugaloos song, “Supersonic Sneakers.”

Still writing Robert Redford on my checks

New Year’s Evil/When Harry Met Sally. Coincidence? Happy New Year!

Cassettes force you to listen to a work in its entirety. Cassettes let you stop a recording and restart it hours, days, years later in a different player. Cassettes can be flipped midway through so you can hear what’s happening at the same time on the other side. Cassettes fit nicely in your pocket.

I know something that’ll cheer you!! This Louis Wain art cat ^ↀᴥↀ^

Christmas in Connecticut: a sweet holiday screwball, and a cynical look at a media that is so determined to tell the public what it wants to hear that it can’t even recognize the truth—until the chemistry is unmistakable.

Moby Dick chapter 3, The Spouter Inn: “But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.”

I’m Harry Crews

RIP DC music legend Tiny Barge, who I interviewed in 2016 for this article that I still think is one of the best things I ever wrote. bandwidth.wamu.org/index.html%3...

Recent acquisitions