The cover art on singer-songwriter Joe Pug’s latest album, The Great Despiser, shows a nearly naked man barely hanging on to the end of a rising balloon. Who knows what it means? Pug says his lyrics are somewhat autobiographical, but they have enough metaphor and allegory thrown in to create some space between the man […]
Almost nothing upsets me more than a poorly constructed sandwich. I’m not kidding. This may show my crazy a bit more than is appropriate for general audiences, but I have literally coldcocked a sandwich for falling apart in my hands. Yep. Dropped it on the plate, and decked it. If you’re anything like me (God […]
The Francophiles Tempo and Fleurie This is the classic battle. The lines are drawn so clearly, it’s almost cartoonish. Fleurie is everything Americans think of when they envision a traditional French restaurant: white tablecloths, classical techniques, measured head chef. Tempo is the France Americans don’t know: quirky décor, fusion techniques, flashy head chef. Chef […]
Musicians. They’re just like the rest of us. Some of them you hit it off with immediately—you get them, and they try their best to understand you. With others, you just don’t see eye-to-eye. Phosphorescent’s Matthew Houck is the type of guy it would be hard not to see eye-to-eye with. An Alabama native who […]
Passafire’s Ted Bowne says he has nothing but respect for his peers in reggae, but there’s one figure in the modern game he doesn’t like—Snoop Lion, formerly Snoop Dogg. “I thought the transformation was well-intended, but if someone starts coming around your house and wearing your clothes and talking like you, it is weird,” Bowne […]
Beer is like a moody lover. It can do you so right, before turning around (as soon as the next morning!) to do you so wrong. But beer still loves you, baby. Don’t be like that. Seasonal beers, more than any other, know how to find the right mood. In the summer, you want to […]
The only thing that could make the banh mi sandwich better is if there were some obscure, obnoxious way to pronounce it. Then all the people who call pho “fuh” could lord their culinary superiority over everyone else in yet another way. “It’s not a ‘bon-me,’” they’d say. “It’s a ‘boon-mh.’” I take that back. […]
Live music is as important now as it’s ever been. With the days of the huge record contract all but behind us and the era of the small label in full swing, most bands can’t make a living without hitting the road hard. “It’s a hard business,” Cold War Kids front man Nathan Willett told […]
There’s a scene in Animal House where John Belushi’s character Bluto walks by a folk singer strumming a tune in the Delta Tau Chi fraternity house. He listens to the lyrics for a moment—“I gave my love a chicken that had no bones” —before smashing the guitar against the wall and handing it back to […]
I was once talking to my boss from across his cubicle when he stopped me mid-sentence and asked, “What’s that smell?” Of all the people you don’t want to hear this from, your boss is probably behind only someone you’d like to bed. Maybe it’s not me, I hoped. But after a quick self-inventory, I had […]