3x3: A song called "Kevin," Danny Brown's sobriety and a QB who knows commas

We got people though

Sep 15, 2023

In the interest of building back up a consistent writing habit and keep myself on task, I’m rolling out a weekly recap of three songs, three stories and three snippets (trying to keep the alliteration but couldn’t think of a better word) that captured my attention during the week. I don’t plan to bombard inboxes with this, but wanted to send for at least this first time.

3 SONGS

Slomosa: “Kevin”

Speaking of consistent habits: I’ve been in a decent groove of a regular gym routine (please clap). That means I’m always looking for something to listen to — the heavier, the better in most cases. I have a large dumping ground of a playlist that I toss songs into just for this purpose, but even that starts to get repetitive. A friend with tastes that lean to the heavy side offered up some recommendations and who am I to say no to a song called “Kevin”? Hailing from Norway, Slomosa describes themselves as “a desert rock band from a cold country.” If you’re into Kyuss and Queens of the Stone Age, then you’re in fjord a treat (sorry).

Catherine Wheel: “Satellite”

Last year, I undertook the Herculean task of cleaning up my old iTunes library and reripping my CD collection (more on that in a future post). Besides getting rid of digital deadweight, it was a chance to reconnect with bands and albums I’d lost touch with. That was especially true with Adam and Eve (1997), the fourth album from British shoegaze band Catherine Wheel that hadn’t been available for streaming until last year. (Here’s a text from Sept. 11, 2022, from my brother, who I think was checking streaming services daily: “Adam and Eve up on Apple Music.”) On an album full of soaring, stunning songs, I’m not even sure “Satellite” is the best song, but it grabbed me right away when I relistened.

Open Mike Eagle: “Dave said these are the liner notes”

Liner notes are a beautiful part of owning physical music (see story below). They were critical to my music discovery — the acknowledgements by an artist to fellow musicians was, more or less, a recommendation service. Here, from his new album, another triumph of ghetto engineering, Open Mike Eagle answers the question: What if we just made a three-minute roll call of it?

“We got people though.”

3 STORIES

Danny Brown Comes Clean: ‘I Didn’t Know How Long I Was Going To Be Living’

A nice profile in Rolling Stone (subscription required, but I saved it in Omnivore and was able to read) on the rapper’s rehab journey — the same guy whose (excellent) 2011 album XXX includes a song called “Adderall Admiral.” I vowed to take a little break from drinking in 2020, which turned into three-plus years (and counting) of being alcohol-free, so I’m always intrigued by stories like this and how/why people decided to stop drinking/doing drugs/whatever. Good for Danny Brown.

An actual CD player I own, purchased at Montgomery Ward about 30 years ago.

The CD finds new life among Gen Z collectors

Hooooo boy. There are a lot of angles to dissect in this Washington Post story: the joy of owning music (as opposed to streaming/renting), experiencing an album sequentially, CDs as household decoration pieces(?), a mention of CD binders(!). I’ve hung on to all my CDs (and Case Logic binders), and I’m jotting down thoughts for a future post about how I reripped my entire collection last year. Amid the vinyl fanfare — of which I’m a part — it’s sort of easy to forget a very obvious fact about CDs: They sound really good. And there was something special about curating those CD binders to take in a car. You had, maybe, 12 slots to fill that binder, so they better be good. This is to say nothing of the economical savings of used CDs vs. what can be obscene markups on used vinyl.

Let’s talk notes: How do you organize quotations?

I’m a bit of a notebook nerd. I live among many filled, half-filled and not-filled-at-all notebooks. Empty notebooks represent the potential of organization, something grand in the making … a potential I have not yet reached. I’ve long been intrigued by a the idea of a commonplace book — a place to jot book passages, quotes, lyrics, etc. — but I haven’t found a system. I want to remember ideas and quotes that inspire, and so I write them down … never to be found again. All this is to say that I’ve really enjoyed Jillian Hess’ “Noted” Substack. It’s given me comfort to know that there is no correct system, that maybe my mess of a system is actually the system.

Noted

Let's Talk Notes: How Do You Organize Quotations?

You know that feeling? You’ve read something really great and you want to remember it! Where do you record that quote? A notebook? A Word document? A text to yourself…

2 years ago · 183 likes · 255 comments · Jillian Hess

This is a wonderful a-ha moment from her latest on Jean-Michel Basquiat’s notes:

Too often, we think of notebooks as a way-station: a necessary stop en-route to the perfected, polished work of art. But what if the notebook is the work of art? What if the process of taking notes is the point?

3 SNIPPETS

Comma chameleon

Patrick Mahomes is a man who understands the value of a comma.

What if you can judge a book by its cover?

I just finished “Welcome Me to the Kingdom” by Mai Nardone and the words are as inviting and colorful as that book jacket. It’s a collection of intertwining short stories whose characters try to find their place, by hook or crook, in the gritty underbelly of Bangkok. My wife and her family are Thai, so I am always looking for insight into the culture, and “Welcome Me” offers the non-tourist version — a sometimes-bleak but realistic portrait of how economics (legal and otherwise), industry and skin tone shape the class society.