I just found out this bird exists and it's the orbiest borb I've ever behorb'd

My book Yorkville: How a 1960s Coffeehouse Scene Rewrote Popular Music is a detailed history of the Toronto scene that hosted Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot in their pre-fame early days. Now available for pre-order: a.co/d/0i6Q72fa

I had to laugh out loud at Google Docs' suggestion to improve one the phrases from my upcoming Beatles lecture.

“Two Soldiers” hair is quite beautiful.

Girding my loins to walk into a midge orgy. www.blogto.com/city/2026/04...

Behind the stucco at Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford.

Truly my favourite Asha Bhosle (RIP) performance. From a cool album she did a few years back with Kronos Quartet. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpXf...

Tickets are going fast for this event. I'll do a short talk on how Beatlemania changed the local Toronto music scene. After that I'll perform the Beatles' 1964 set at Maple Leaf Gardens with a four-piece band. $15 and includes admission to the McCartney photo exhibit. ago.ca/events/beatl...

“I think about horses. They used to pull carriages, but when cars came around, I'd argue horses became a lot more free.” Total insanity. I'm so glad I'm not a university sessional anymore. www.404media.co/whats-the-po...

I may have drooled a bit in my sleep last night but it was just involuntary manslobber.

Best songs over 10 minutes (off the top of my head) Dark Star (live versions) Murder Most Foul 1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be) Sister Ray Echoes

But will anyone notice? www.vancouverisawesome.com/travel/air-c...

Gas station attendant Kitchen prep Pager salesman Radio producer Church musician

This will be interesting to watch. I’m getting Napster wars vibes from this, it’s a nice throwback. And btw there is tons of commercial music missing from the streaming services, locked on vinyl or shellac. exclaim.ca/music/articl...

i wrote an afterword about bobby weir for @pitchfork.com, but probably could've kept going for a few more days. pitchfork.com/features/bob...

One of the many reasons AI can't produce good writing is it can't hate its own writing. It can't think to itself "Maybe I'm illiterate" during the writing process. And that's essential

As a kid this was the first I heard about the Nigerian-Biafran war, a truly horrifying attempted genocide indeed abetted by the British government. I've only just really learned about it from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's excellent Half A Yellow Sun.

Guys I found it

Canadians are so upset with the United States & Trump that this year they are boycotting Thanksgiving & holding their own this weekend, calling it, "Canadian Thanksgiving". They are PISSED.

Steely Dan

They've lost the 9yos

this exists it is called thinking

“Inhalants” is a bop youtu.be/TjBC4ZBMkBE

Performative Clown 1 Dingbat Grifter 0 America -2,783

“Porchie, bring the corgis…” www.inbella.com/1257175/quee...

Looking forward to the leak of Pulte's Burn Book. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/u...

I attended the Who’s first farewell concert in ‘82. Good times. nowtoronto.com/culture/the-...

I’m committed to getting this book draft in on time, no matter how long it takes me.

Two unseen snapshots of Jimi Hendrix live in Toronto, 1968, by Linda Goldman.

A cool early flyer for a Toronto package tour to the Woodstock festival, part of my friend Linda Goldman's collection. Linda did end up going. By that time the festival had expanded to three days of peace and music.

I've been researching Jim Croce's music and I haven't seen anyone point out the similarity of "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" to certain turn-of-the-century 'coon songs' that described black-on-black violence in lurid detail, complete with razors. See e.g. levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/sites/defaul...

Thou shalt not make a machine in the image of a human mind.

Viva voce is maybe the only real way to assess in the age of AI. But it's not tenable in my adjunct teaching world, which has lately consisted of huge online classes to prop up enrolment-starved music departments. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/o...

I dreamed that I was on a jazz gig with noted Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn playing piano. He was terrible, couldn’t really play. And why should he? He’s not a musician, he’s a noted Beatles historian.

I found several of my academic articles in the LibGen database that was illegally used to train Meta AI. Writers check this out!

When I'm off grid, I insist on free wi-fi.

Slightly diminish a band: Denting Pumpkins

This is the LATEST model. Unreal

T-shirts everywhere breathe a sigh of relief.

Yngwie Malmsteen, Swedish neoclassical guitar shredding legend, is now selling branded multivitamin supplements and yoga mats. www.malmsteenmerchandise.com/collections/...

TIL that Brits call hood ornaments “car mascots.” Why not bonnet bedazzlers?

The only good Dead cover band name

Kinda reminds me of how the general public gave up its musical literacy a generation after the introduction of the phonograph, since we no longer needed to play/sing to 'have' music. Implications of this today are vast. What are we about to lose?

who burned cigarette holes in their arms protesting the narcotic tobacco haze of Capitalism,

This was the gateway for me, an album that somehow ended up in our house when I was a teenager. It's the only one I had, but I listened to it a LOT. There was something so uplifting, positive, funky but tuneful, with different members of the band often trading off on vocals. 1/

On chatbots: publiccomment.blog/p/you-ll-nev...

Musicians are elite athletes who decorate time.