For this series, I’m starting in a place where I can actually remember listening to music, that magical year of 1963, when I turned seven years old. Everything here is totally subjective (as if nothing else I write is). So…

Check out this list of the 100 top selling albums of 1963:

It’s a pretty incredible list, given how the music was shifting and really all over the place. …

They didn’t write their own songs at least, but when you examine the hit recordings of Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, this late 1960’s pop/soft rock band, a few things jump out at you, or at least they should.

First, when I say “creepy,” I’m not talking about the obvious gothy-kitsch of the 90’s Marilyn Manson, who turned out to be a true creep, and I’m not talking either about the more obvious and campy “They’re Coming to Take Me Away” (Napoleon XIV) as strange and unsettling as it might be. And yes, “creepy” is a subjective term. I…

Chris Zappa posted this story today:

Of course he challenged some thinking, and since I’m feeling good — reading and teaching Mrs. Dalloway today — I decided to go ahead and weigh in and maybe amuse a few of you, and maybe piss a few of you off. As Chris says, this isn’t personal, or at least I don’t hate you for liking these songs (and vice-versa), nor am I judging anyone’s taste. …

Late fall and winter nights come early in Alabama, where I grew up. As Dec. 21st approaches, often the sun’s light is deeply waning by 4:30, and if you suffer from Melatonin deficiency, or hell, if you just tend toward the blue side of things, then encroaching darkness is usually as much your friend as that long walk down your semi-abandoned street with only your aging Bassett Hound for protection.

By 4:30 on these days when I’d be home from college for the winter break, my mother would get anxious, awaiting my father’s return, preparing another wonderful supper — how…

I am an unabashed college football fan, or more particularly, an Alabama Crimson Tide fan. Yesterday, Alabama and Florida played an epic game in Florida’s “Swamp,” and given the humidity there, swamp lived up to the description.

Here at our house, in the cool of the air conditioned evening, the only sweltering going on was in my nerves as Florida crept closer and closer to snatching a W away from Bama. A missed extra point, a failed two-point conversion, and the final, 31–29, Alabama. All good.

Except.

My dog, Max, loves to play with his rubberized nerf football — usually…

Scouring HBO last night in search of a documentary about music to feed my soul, I discovered right at the end of that trail, Bruce Springsteen’s 2019 film, Western Stars. I have the record downloaded but suppose I was too busy and too awash in my own obsessions to have contemplated Bruce’s latest.

It’s funny, but as I stood in Horizon Records yesterday figuring out which records to buy, I touched again the vinyl edition of Western Stars, thought about it for a few minutes, and then replaced it in the stacks for a brand new solid copy of The…

Actually, I don’t mind being late to parties, because I find that the warmer things have gotten, the easier it is to slip in undetected, avoiding that awkwardness when you and the host and maybe the other poor sap who is usually alone are standing around waiting on the music or the drugs or the food to kick in.

I HAVE been the one sitting in a parlor alone, believing an event started at 7 when it actually began at 7:30. I’ve rarely felt as awkward as in those 30 minutes and even many of the others that followed.

I…

As my wife and I drive home from our first live rock and soul show in nineteen months, I was a fractured mix of ghosts.

First, it was 10:00, and here we were, heading home, ready to climb into our bed and read and settle in for a late summer night’s sleep.

“I remember when this was the hour I used to be getting ready to go out the door for whatever blessings or curses the night would hold,” I mentioned to my wife, “and my Dad would look at me like I had decided to embark on a journey…