My family had an on-again, off-again relationship with going to church on Sundays when I was growing up. Sometimes we’d go every Sunday for a few months straight, go sporadically for another couple of months, and then not go at all for while. Regardless of our frequency or infrequency of attendance, my parents made it …
Sometimes I wonder what songwriter/artist has had their songs performed or covered by other artists the most. I’ve gone through a lot music in my lifetime, especially over the last fifteen years of my career, and I would guess that it probably comes down to two possibilities: Bob Dylan or Lennon-McCartney. When I’ve had the …
It fascinates me to no end how you can sometimes wake up and have no recollection of dreaming and other times remember dreams so vividly. I suppose it comes down to how deeply or not you sleep on any given night, and I’m sure there are numerous studies addressing this phenomenon that I just simply …
I was fortunate enough to have some really good teachers growing up. One of my favorites while I was in junior high school was a guy named Mr. King, who was my science teacher in 7th and 8th grade. During that second year, I had this little, tie-dye colored transistor radio, about the size of …
The Black Crowes were a band that would always be peppered here and there on various Detroit radio stations. Despite liking all of the songs I heard on the radio, I never dove deeper into their albums when I lived in Michigan. After being at my current job for a year or two, however, I …
Every once in a while, I’ll get asked to work on some stuff that’s outside the normal collection I have access to. Maybe seven or eight years ago, my boss called me into our tape library to check out some tapes that had just come in for a transfer request. Digging through a mail tub …
One day during the summer of 1999, I got a call from the other drummer in jazz band, asking if I wanted four tickets to see Blue Öyster Cult, Nazareth, and Survivor at Pine Knob Music Theatre. A friend of mine and I would jam on Blue Öyster Cult’s “Godzilla” regularly when we played, so …
My buddy Carlos is a big fan of soul and funk music, and it’s one of many things that we’ve connected on through the years. Early on in our friendship, he let me borrow a CD box set he had called What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves. Some of the artists and songs …
I recently finished reading the Bible. I’m not religious or anything, but reading that book had been a goal of mine for a little while, mostly because of the undeniable impact it’s had on human development (for better or worse). As I made my way through Ecclesiastes, I got to a section titled Everything Has …
Tal (pronounced like Al with a “T” instead of tall like Mikhail Tal), a coworker of mine for the last 14+ years, is a big Styx fan. He’s seen them live quite a few times throughout the years that I’ve known him and has always told me that they put on a great show. Though …