Mixing early rock and roll in its purest and delightfully dirtiest heights with eye-winking Hoodoo mysticism, Who Do You Love is one of the most revolutionary songs produced of its kind. It was written by the recently deceased musical legend Bo Diddley and covered to various degrees of success by George Thorogood among many others. As it happens, Diddley’s version is by far the best, playful, mysterious and light years ahead of its time.

Trip-Hop has sort of inexplicably become one of my favorite genres. Many music critics attribute the founding of this genre to the Bristol-based group Massive Attack with the release of its amazing debut album, Blue Lines. The album features the track Unfinished Sympathy, which has been remixed within an inch of its life by dozens of famous DJs. Again, the original version is the best. It represents the band’s oeuvre beautifully: dark, sexy, esoteric and strangely danceable.

I know it’s kinda sacrilegious to say, but I think that Radiohead’s latest, In Rainbows, has usurped The Bends to become my favorite Radiohead album.

The first track on the album, 15 Step is a killer song that incorporates all of the things that give Radiohead the greatly deserved reputation of being God-Like in a totally uninspired landscape. It’s catchy, complex without being inaccessible, and strangely melodic despite the synthesizers. Read More »

Recently, Keith Murray, from We Are Scientists [if you don't know this band you should sincerely check them out], chatted with me for a bit while waiting in a long European buffet line about his band’s emerging presence and much more.

E: You’re in the middle of a really big tour right now. Do you think that touring plays a bigger role these days in being a band than when you started the band?

K: Um, I mean, I think perhaps, proportionally, no. I don’t think anything’s really changed about touring for us and I’m not sure that the fruits of the touring labor are necessarily more substantive. It does seem like the selling of records has become definitionally less…of a factor in measuring how well you’re doing. I feel like touring is probably about as important as it ever was and the space that…the big gaping chasm that’s been left by diminishing album sales has sorta filtered itself into other things. Like, I feel like, weirdly, licensing now is playing a much bigger role than it used to. And online presence, in general, is sorta replacing sales. I feel like touring is a rock that is not changing.

E: Speaking of online presences, I’m interested in knowing what you think about Myspace since it started getting big in the middle of your career with We Are Scientists.

K: I feel like…and I’m sure there are examples that can contradict what I’m about to say…but in my experience, Myspace seems…..sort of like the free release thing that Radiohead did with In Rainbows…it works really well once people know what they’re looking for. But I’ve never experienced a situation where I was trolling around Myspace and discovered a band. That seems like a reach for me. Read More »