It took me awhile to appreciate the Ataris. All these years later, I can admit it was a bit of jealousy. Kris and I were never friends, but I used to see him all the time at shows in Indianapolis, mostly at the Emerson Theater, and also at A-1 Records in Anderson.
Read MoreThis record is not their masterpiece, but it certainly blew people minds and gave you glimpses into the music to come.
Read MoreI paid homage to Chris Bell on the cover of my 2021 single, “Overwhelming”. I shot it myself in the course of a few minutes, with help from my friend Dave to make sure my tripod didn’t blow over on a windy Colorado day. In recent years, Chris has started to catch up with his former bandmate Alex Chilton in posthumous “cool credibility”, but I have long been as connected to, if not more, Chris’s musical talents as I have Alex’s.
Read MoreRyan Adams has been so prolific dating back to his time in Whiskeytown in the 1990s that, possibly aside from Heartbreaker, his solo debut, you could say all of his records are under-appreciated.
Read MoreWhen you saw Natalie Imbruglia’s name, you immediately thought of “Torn” didn’t you?
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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