3 Minutes, 49 Seconds

Early in rock history and on into its mid-point, the supergroup was a viable second act in a musician's career. In fact, in many cases the supergroup became more notable than the original bands the members hailed from. Take Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Asia, and Bad Company for example. In modern times the supergroup has not only gotten rarer, it's become more of a lark, something intended to kill time between projects. The Traveling Wilburys, Golden Smog, and the Thorns were all great, but temporary. Some would define Velvet Revolver and Audioslave as supergroups, but I wouldn't. To me those bands were rock 'n' roll Frankensteins: Same body, different head. A couple of years ago I wrote this post, wherein I ran with Chuck Klosterman's challenge to build an ideal supergroup. My answer now would be a little bit different than it was then, but I can guarantee you, I would have never have thought to put James Iha (guitar), Adam Sc...

Change is in the air. It's actually been there awhile, but I've been trying to ignore it. Please allow me a slightly awkward extended metaphor. Let's say instead of a music blogger/obsessive I was a professional sports star. Instead of ERA, rebounds, or touchdowns, my statistical categories are CDs bought, CDs reviewed, and number of times posted on the blog. In my early career I was a phenom, putting up gaudy numbers. Witness: 2003 - 2006 I posted on the blog 155 times, at an average of 4.1 posts per month. I wrote 135 reviews, 115 of which were of new (at the time) CDs. That's 85%. 87% of my posts were album reviews. I bought between 80 and 100 new release CDs PER YEAR. Big numbers, right? That's a stat line anyone can be proud of. But let's look at what happened in the last three years. It's a slightly smaller sample, but only by 2 months (In 2003 I only wrote in November and December). 2007 - 2009 I posted on the blog 167 times, at an aver...

Every year I make two mixes of songs that move me, one for each half of the year. I've just finished the first one for 2009. The artwork should be somewhat familiar. Here is the tracklist: 1. P.O.S. – Low Light Low Life 2. Phoenix – Lasso 3. Sean Fournier – Put the World on Stop 4. White Rabbits – Rudie Fails 5. Death Cab for Cutie – Little Bribes 6. The Seldon Plan – Run, Go 7. The Hopefuls – Virgin Wood 8. Green Day – Horseshoes and Handgrenades 9. Mandy Moore – I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week 10. Harlem Shakes – Strictly Game 11. Tinted Windows – Cha Cha 12. The Honeydogs – Stash 13. U2 – Stand Up Comedy 14. Morrissey – All You Need Is Me

Ah shit. That was my first reaction when my friend Dave texted me the news yesterday that Adam Schlesinger had died after contracting COVID-19. . Though he had a wide and varied career as a film/TV/theater composer ( That Thing You Do and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ) and worked as a producer (weirdly often, it was with artists I already loved such as They Might Be Giants, The Monkees , and  Motion City Soundtrack ), for me the beginning and end will always be Fountains of Wayne. I was hip to them almost from the start. Their first album came out in the fall of 1996, when I was a sophomore in college. I'd gotten a job at the campus radio station, which gave me access to a vast library of promotional CDs. Most of these went ignored, as the program manager had very narrow tastes (basically if it wasn't in top 10 on the CMJ charts he didn't touch it). I must have read about Fountains of Wayne in a magazine, and doubtless said magazine used the magic words "power pop" ...