When I was little my mom got this album from the library and made a cassette recording of it. You know, old-school bootleg style where she had to press down record and play at the same time and hold up the microphone to the speaker while she hoped the record didn’t skip. Man, I was [...]

I knew it wouldn’t take long. The little bean has learned to dance, just like her mama. In my Dudely capacity as a Dudeist minister and auntie of said bean, I feel it is my responsibility to nurture her development in the cultural arts. There are many important things to learn, such as the words [...]

There will be some kickass additions to Rock Band 3, like keyboards, harmony vocals, and guitars that will actually teach you to play with skillz for realz. “Bohemian Rhapsody” is an especially delicious-looking track (by the way, if you haven’t downloaded the Queen track pack, DO IT NOW) and I’m looking forward to wailing on [...]

Last week my XM radio preview expired. I feel that I got my money’s worth from the free trial, and I won’t be subscribing. Why? The content blows XM radio might be more properly called B-side radio; big hits are few and far between. Turns out that although commercials are annoying on FM radio, they [...]

I haven’t found a high-quality avant-garde album on the new releases rack since Who Killed Amanda Palmer. No surprise that I had to wait until Amanda Palmer’s next project, Evelyn Evelyn, to hear something that wasn’t just a bunch of stuck up art school grads amusing themselves with tired, inauthentic noise played on deliberately broken [...]

Ireland’s greatest cultural contribution has been its music. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that races of people who suffered loss of control over their native soil, imperialism, racism, and hostile treatment in foreign lands end up producing the world’s most beautiful music. Jews, African Americans, and the Irish always spring to mind as people [...]

If you still haven’t picked up D.J. Earworm’s “Blame it on the Pop” and given it a listen, make a new year’s resolution to do so right now. There’s a lot of people out there doing mashups, but very few are able to effect the kind of poetry that DJ Earworm does. If you take [...]