And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

Matthew 6

I just read an article about this guy Reinhold Mack. Here’s a guy who produced or engineered over 100 million records and you’ve likely never heard of him. Led Zeppelin, ELO, Queen for openers. Amazing. I’d never heard of him. But his credits are as long as yer arm. It was so refreshing to hear about this guy, I mean.. it was like a tonic. I mean, check out his wikipedia page. Have you ever in your life seen a guy with that many credits with such a Spartan page? It’s insane.

So the first question […]

Steve (Porcupine Tree) Wilson has been writing a bunch lately about ‘the evils of compression in music listening.’ I’ve certainly done my share of ranting on this topic.

Everybody has a “kill ’em all” moment—at least once in a while. Everybody. Mother Theresa had ’em.

My latest issue of Time Magazine hit my mailbox and the moment I looked at the cover I had one:

Not immediately, mind you. It took a couple of seconds to register. I mean, at first all I saw was a very pretty girl in a beautiful hijab. I mean—look at those eyes! At the same instant I did think (no cliche) “What’s wrong with this picture?”

See it took a couple of seconds because I just couldn’t imagine this. I’ve read plenty of gruesome tales from various histories (Roman, Persian, Henry IV, etc.) where such things happened. But that was like, oh… a THOUSAND YEARS AGO.

It literally took a couple of seconds before my brain would accept the visual information being streamed in through me glassies. I’ve read a bunch of psychology articles which talk about the old ‘deer in the headlights’ deal—people hesitate […]

Submitted for your approval. I give you Pomplamoose; apparently the hottest indie band in America right now, due to their hugely viral videos.

Do Americans know the term twee? Well, ya oughta. It’s a word that perfectly describes what is to me a really disturbing trend in pop music (and art in general); specifically it’s dumbing down. Or rather, it’s what I like to call the glorification of not growing up.

Now it’s not so much the ‘dumbing down’ of music that’s got me in my current lather. I’ve had most of my life to get used to that form of sadness. No,  it’s simply that current flavour is so insidious that makes it so troubling.

See in days of yore, you’d have a group like The Beach Boys or later on Abba who did simplistic, tuneful, carefree songs featuring fresh-faced kids. This was marketing gold. I call it  Audio-Wonderbread: Everybody likes it even though it provides all the nutrition for the spirit as the alleged baked good does for the […]

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/123260-pour-some-sugarland-on-me-why-country-music-is-the-new-classic-rock

Man do I love this column. I love it so much I have absolutely nothing to add. He said it all.