Theme Park Experience

Here's the reality of being a lifelong music fan/audiophile: I now accept the fact that my entire library cannot be consolidated to digital. It's not like I'm against having everything in one place. It's more the nature of the beast that comes with collecting vinyl and bargain bin CDs in addition to everything else. As much as I had apprehension towards vinyl before, the source of changing the opinion around comes from the quality of the needle, turntable, and the actual vinyl. With less of a demand for CDs year after year, deluxe remasters could be a thing of the past. (And I'm not hot on the idea of shelling out $200 for a set including a remastered CD, 180-vinyl, DVD, and book.) For example, I don't think Columbia Records will not get around to producing massive reissues/box sets for the rest of Bruce Springsteen's catalog. Instead of buying a thin-sounding version on CD, I gladly will add The River and Nebraska to my vinyl collection. The same goes for

For this week's edition , I had the pleasure to interview Mark Pirro from the Polyphonic Spree and Tripping Daisy. Lots of great stuff to share, including the first time he played with Tripping Daisy.

Probably one of the best Christmas gifts is seeing Red Animal War live. They don't play live very often and I interviewed Matt and Justin on this and other topics.

To help promote When We Were the Kids , I decided to create a Tumblr page for it. For sanity's sake, the information on that page will be general in nature, featuring mainly links, photos, and clips. Theme Park Experience will continue to be the hub for all my online adventures.

In the spirit of this excellent site, I offer a few things about how to be a professional in the workplace. Don't talk to your co-workers like they're your childhood friends. Also, don't talk to them like they're five years old and have learning deficiencies. There are many different ways to communicate with adults. These extremes are not the only ways. Know the difference between a "crisis" and a crisis. A true crisis can involve a loved one in a serious accident and needs to be attended to right away. A "crisis" is when you can't find your favorite kind of socks. You do less with less. Still waiting to hear about how a workplace benefits from doing more workload with less people? You're not alone. Don't say, "You're only human," and then berate someone for being human. Humans make mistakes. Remember this and say this to yourself. If you say you're coming in early tomorrow to help out, that means you're coming in e

My First Show is extra special this week. Instead of interviewing one person or a band, I interviewed a bunch of local artists I interviewed this year and got their take on their favorite shows. And I got them to preview what's coming up for them in 2012. You can read the whole meatball 12-inch here .

I graduated college ten years ago this month. It was also ten years ago when I saw a movie by Cameron Crowe in a theater. Coming out of Vanilla Sky with my brother-in-law, I felt like the world was much bigger and vaster. A few weeks later, I saw the movie again and still loved it. Since Crowe released only one more film in the ensuing years prior to this year , it's not like I had an embargo with his work. Elizabethtown interested me, but I never got around to seeing it. When the basic idea was announced, not surprisingly, online movie writers got excited about the prospect of something on par with Say Anything . Based on the response when the movie actually came out, there was a large degree of disappointment. (Seems like Nathan Rabin remains the most vocal about the film, especially with his bookend reviews of the film in My Year of Flops .) This year, Crowe released Pearl Jam 20 , a decent look at the band that suffers from a common dilemma with band documentaries: there was

I know a guy who likes to tweet a lot about his personal life on Twitter. A little too much, if you ask me. Usually the tweets are about missing his home state, trying to pick up girls, and thinking about girls he used to date. There are many reasons why I don't write that kind of stuff on Twitter, and his feed is ample proof of what I don't want to explicitly put out there. But, as much as I don't really see eye-to-eye with this guy on how to represent yourself online, I've found myself slightly seeing eye-to-eye with a tweet he wrote earlier this year. Very slightly. Missing his ex-girlfriend's pet more than his ex seemed incredibly harsh when I originally read it, but I thought about the general innocence that comes with a pet. Be it a cat or a dog, the pet doesn't really grow much after the kitten/puppy stage. Since the most they do is meow or bark, you don't get asked why the sky is blue or when's supper. The perpetual state of cuteness can easily f

Another update on When We Were the Kids . Given my state of being between full-time jobs, I have a lot of free time, but I haven't spent hours a day working on another draft. Am I wasting away by not taking advantage of this? I don't think so. I've lived with this book for almost five years and I want to take a little time away from it before I release it. I'm awaiting some feedback from a friend on his take with the book. I'm hoping his take will help me shape the final draft. Then it will go to my editor and the publishing train will start rolling soon after. Unlike what they say about one's second book ("You have all the time in the world to do your first, but you have very limited time to do your second"), I've had all the time I've wanted with working on this. And I'm grateful. Once again, that William Goldsmith line came into my head: "The truth takes time to tell." Of course, this is a fictional book, but I don't want i

This week's edition was a true treat: I interviewed all three members of Here Holy Spain at once. Drummer Scott Brayfield was part of the first interview I ever did with a band, back when he was in Slowride. Was a really good catch-up with him and meeting his bandmates. They're good people who make good music.

Wrapping up the week, I did a few more DC9 items. Saw My Morning Jacket pulverize the Verizon Theatre, saw Scratch Acid rip Trees apart, and I talked with Travis Hopper about his band Elkhart and playing music for his daughter.

This week's edition is with Graham Jones from Yukon Blonde. He mentions seeing Moneen, a band I saw back at the old Door a few years ago. Pretty incredible live band, flying dreadlocks and all. He also mentions seeing Bob Dylan, someone I tend to only hear horror stories about.

I covered Puscifer's show on Saturday night at the Majestic. Quite a different kind of show than anything I've seen before, but it was quite enjoyable. Interesting side note: Sitting next to me was someone I've read a lot of ire about from Zac Crain: the Dallas Morning News ' music critic Mario Tarradell. Tarradell was very friendly and engaged in the show (just read the guy's live Twitter feed ), and I didn't ask what he thought of Zac. Remember, there's what you say in person and then there's what you say online for everyone to see. Pretty different worlds.

In hopes of not sounding like a total whiner, 2011 turned out to be one of the hardest years of my adult life. My girlfriend was diagnosed with cancer and she decided later in the year she didn't want to be in a relationship anymore. The guy who taught me how to be a traffic reporter died after a lengthy battle with emphysema. My band broke up. And I got laid off. Some year where I was looking forward to January 1st to start anew, eh? You bet. That said, I enjoyed a lot of music, among everything else I'm into (which, more or less, consists of reading books, watching movies, golfing, and reading about MMA fights). So without further ado, here's this year in review: ------ Albums Released This Year That I Really Liked (And Not Really In A Particular Order) Rival Schools, Pedals You know when a band spends way too much time (as in, more than two years) to release a new album and the album sounds like warmed-over mush? Well, Rival Schools didn't do that with Pedals . They