I know I’m old. I’m a young Gen X’er. I find myself, more and more, saying, “Man, things used to be so much better than they are now.” Some of that is just middle-age rearing its ugly head, but some of that is true. One place where I wholeheartedly believe it is true is when you compare mixtapes to playlists.
Read MoreOne, I didn’t include Christmas songs. A lot of Christmas songs get me. Two, I didn’t include anything too personal, although if it’s not somewhat personal, you’re not going to feel it enough to be moved to tears.
Read MoreI’m not going to tell you that there isn’t such a thing as authenticity, but I am going to ask, at least in regard to art, “who is to say what is authentic?”
Read MoreI grew up six miles down the road from the house John grew up in on Indiana Highway 11. Me, just north of Jonesville in Bartholomew County, and he just north of Rockford in Jackson County. Of course, he’s 28 ½ years older than me, but as I was becoming aware of music, his musical shadow was a long one in Southern Indiana. Some of my earliest memories are of driving around on the country roads and my folks having a collection of great cassettes in the car: Eliminator (ZZ Top), Learning to Crawl (The Pretenders) and Uh Huh and American Fool by John.
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