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 ...