5.1.25
This has been a pretty good year for new music, and I'm finding myself somewhat uncharacteristically drawn to more chill, peaceful releases. New albums from people like Dean Wareham (formerly of Galaxie 500 and Luna), Panda Bear (Animal Collective) Japanese Breakfast, Lucy Dacus (Boygenius), Destroyer, Hamilton Leithauser (the Walkmen), and Horsegirl have all leaned towards lower tempo, low key vibes, and I've been really into all of them.

I don't know if this a reaction to the chaos of this year since Trump came back into office and all of the uncertainty at this phase of our lives, but it's continuing a trend from 2024 with artists like Jessica Pratt, Waxahatchee, Kim Deal, the Cure, and MJ Lenderman, all of whom made my top 10 last year. The records these artists released last year brought me a measure of comfort and peace that I was desperately seeking, even when lawless, fascist wanna-be oligarchs weren't busy ripping apart our constitution and destroying the greatest experiment in democracy that our world has ever seen.

I don't listen to these records exclusively of course—there's plenty of loud music that has captured my attention this year as well, including records from Bob Mould (Husker Du, Sugar), Sleigh Bells, Car Seat Headrest, and Wishy. But when I'm sitting down to do some working/thinking/writing and I want some music to accompany those efforts, it's the records in the first paragraph that I'm reaching for more consistently.

5.6.25
Back when I first started collecting vinyl records after the house fire destroyed all of my other collections, I had a friend gift me a three month subscription to a vinyl subscription service called Vinyl Me, Please (a stupid name which I will henceforth refer to simply as VMP). This company produced unique colored vinyl versions of classic records in various genres, usually with extras like an art print and/or an extended essay about the record/band, and sometimes with an entirely new remaster. The first records I got with my gift subscription were Big Boi's Sir Lucious Left Foot, Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space, and Queen Latifah's classic debut from 1989, All Hail the Queen.

In addition to a nice back catalogue of previous releases that hadn't yet sold out, they also released several new records a month, and having a subscription entitled you to one of those for free, a discount on other purchases, and access to buy other limited edition titles prior to their availability to non-members. So I renewed the subscription once the gift period was over, first for six months and then for a year at a time after that (the longer the subscription period, the deeper the discount on the subscription cost).

And it was pretty great while it lasted—I have dozens of VMP releases in my collection, and they are pretty much all top notch in terms of pressing quality and packaging. But for the past year or so, cracks have been showing in the organization, including a failed attempt to open their own pressing plant, the board firing three members of the C-suite (including the CEO), the board and the executives suing each other over their ouster, increasing problems with new titles getting to customers in a timely manner, and poor predictive algorithms which led to some titles being ridiculously overstocked while other titles didn't even have enough copies to send to subscribers.

But it's all officially come to an end now, with the company notifying current and past subscribers (many of whom, like me, are still waiting for orders from months ago to be fulfilled) last month that they were going into liquidation, and that we'd likely never receive albums we'd already paid for, even though they had already been pressed and were simply waiting for distribution from the warehouse. There's a small chance that whoever buys the assets will try to restart the subscription service and start pressing new titles using a version of the original VMP model, and that they could also ship all outstanding efforts in an effort to win back former subscribers, but it seems much more likely that they will simply take over the existing inventory and try to sell it directly to distributors.

It's a real shame—they were certainly making enough money to sustain the model if they focused on what drew people to them in the first place, but executive hubris, loss of focus, and bad investments led to the rapid enshittification of what was once the premiere vinyl subscription service with a growing and devoted fanbase. VMP had been around since 2013, and seemed to be in a position to continue their positive growth until 2023 or so, but once things started to go bad, it only took a year or so for their reputation and their customer based to unravel, quickly leading to the bankruptcy proceedings that were announced in April.

5.7.25
An earlier analog to VMP was a service called Bandbox, which, like VMP, delivered a monthly record on colored vinyl with a curated zine. Almost exactly a year before VMP cratered, Bandbox also announced it was going into bankruptcy, and no outstanding orders (which were paid for in advance) would be fulfilled, even those that had already been pressed and were sitting in a warehouse waiting to be mailed out.

Luckily they made this announcement when we were still in the window where I could dispute the charge with my credit card company, so I was able to get my money back. And although some of my preorders hadn't been pressed yet, Bandbox had actually pressed two of my orders (for Alvvays' Antisocialites and Blue Rev), and in what amounts to a small miracle, those pressings somehow ended up in the hands of Polyvinyl, Alvvays' American record label. If you could prove that you had ordered them from Bandbox with an email receipt, that label (one of the best indie labels around), they offered to send them to you for the cost of shipping.

So I now have those two variants on my shelf, over a year and a half after I placed my order with Bandbox and almost a year after that company became insolvent. Interestingly, even though both records were sold out on the Bandcamp site, they are still available to purchase directly from Polyvinyl (who listed the remaining copies on their website after a short waiting period to process Bandcamp claims). Which means that a bunch of people who wanted and paid for these variants on the Bandbox site either didn't notice or didn't follow up on the email from Polyvinyl about how to claim their copies. But I'm very happy I have mine.

5.8.25
Even though vinyl collecting has been the impetus to expand my knowledge of rock and pop music, particularly stuff from the 70s and early 80s, I still don't have a lot of knowledge of Bob Dylan. I know the many famous songs, of course, but at this point, the only album of his that I own is Blonde on Blonde, which I got a couple of years ago and have listened to fewer than 10 times as this point. But I'm curious enough about him that I decided to give the recent biopic starring Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown, a watch.

As a movie, it's more of a tone piece. It covers a relatively brief but incredibly important period in Dylan's life, from his move to NYC from Minnesota in 1961, his quick rise to fame, and his conversion from acoustic folk artist to rocker in 1965. There are recreations of seminal moments in his career and life, including his friendship with idol Woody Guthrie, his electric appearance headlining the Newport Folk Festival in 1965, and his professional and personal relationship with Joan Baez. It was fine, but in some ways as enigmatic and closed-off as the artist himself is.

As a follow up, I read one of the many Dylan biographies, Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan by Howard Sounes. It confirmed my suspicions that many of the elements of A Complete Unknown were based on real events but were highly fictionalized for the sake of imparting a higher truth without being strictly devoted to the facts. It also covers a much longer period of Dylan's life, starting with his childhood and ending at the turn of the century when Dylan turned 60.

My main takeaways from both these works of hagiography were that 1) Dylan is brilliant; 2) Dylan is an asshole; and 3) Dylan follows his own compass to sometimes frustrating places, and that's part of what his adherents love about him even when it means some of his best songs go unreleased and there are entire periods in his catalogue, spanning multiple albums, that can generally be skipped over.

I'll likely dig deeper into his musical output at some point, but even though I like a lot of Blonde on Blonde, it didn't immediately compel me to go out and get more of his records.

5.13.25
Over the weekend, we went to Chastain Park to see Wilco with Waxahatchee opening. I've seen both of these bands a lot, and in a weird coincidence, they were both tied for fourth for bands I've seen most frequently at six shows each. So seeing them both on the same night means that they are now tied not only with each other but also with Modest Mouse for third, with seven shows for each band (although Modest Mouse will reclaim sole ownership of third place later this summer when I see them on a double bill with the Flaming Lips).

We don't take Will out to shows much anymore—it's just not his thing right now, and it might not ever be—but since at Wilco show at Chastain was the site of one of my favorite experiences with Will (we bought front row seats for below face value a few hours before the show started, ran into drummer Glenn Kotche while wandering around outside the venue before the show, and ended up getting a setlist and concert-used drumsticks from Glenn after the show), I try to bring him along when they play this venue (which is the only place they've played in Atlanta since they played the Fox back in 2017).

It was rainy that afternoon, with thunderstorms predicted on and off throughout the evening, so we didn't get there early like we normally do, since we weren't going to go if it was going to rain all night. But it looked like it was going to clear enough for at least the Wilco portion of the evening, so we headed out about an hour and a half before Waxahatchee was scheduled to take the stage and were still able to get a spot in our preferred parking lot.

It was drizzling when we entered the venue, so we put on our cheap disposable ponchos and kept them on throughout Waxahatchee's set. She was great as always, and even when the rain picked up, our little ponchos did a pretty good job of protecting us from the wet. One of my oldest friends was also at the show with his son, and they ended up on the same row as us, only a few seats away from ours, so that was a nice coincidence.

The rain had mostly cleared when Wilco came on, and we stayed for the majority of their usual lengthy set, but we were all kind of exhausted dealing with the traffic and the rain on the way in, so we left close to the end of the main set. Although there are things I like a lot about Chastain, it does have its drawbacks, and I wish they'd think about playing a more traditional venue in Atlanta the next time they roll through. But I'll likely be getting a ticket no matter what.

5.14.25
I did team trivia with my friends for the first time in a couple of years last month, and last week, we got together again for another round. There were six of us this time, and we usually have a decent chance to place in the top 3 if we have five or more, so I was optimistic even though there were at least three other tables with at least six players as well (and I think one of them had seven and another had eight).

Last time we tied for third, tied again on the first tiebreaker, and then lost by a hair on the second tiebreaker (it was one where you had to guess the year, and our guess was one off while the other team got it exactly). Going into the final bonus question, we were in third place, with two other teams within two points of us, and we were only able to get three of the possible five points from the bonus round. And the team that was one point behind us got all of them, so we ended up barely losing to them.

Usually when we have at least 100 total points, we've won something, but this marked the second time in a row that we got into triple digits (100 points last week, and 105 points last month) and still came away empty handed. I still had a good evening though, although I ended up being on the other end of the table from the two people I haven't seen in the longest, so I didn't really get a chance to catch up with them.

5.15.25
The last couple of weeks have sucked at work, almost all due to the volume of meetings that ended up on my calendar. Commencement was held over the weekend, which typically signals the start of summer operations and lots of people being out for vacation, so I think everyone was trying to jam in one last meeting for all the various committees and working groups I'm on before adjourning for the summer.

I've never been a big fan of days stacked with meetings at any point in my career, but especially when the meetings are only being held because they are on the calendar and not because there's actually anything to discuss, which seemed to be the case with a lot of my calendar items over the past couple of weeks.

I'm hoping that things will clear out a bit until August, when people return to the office in preparation for orientation and the start of classes. I don't know if we're going to take a trip anywhere this summer, but having a calendar with a low meetings-per-day average is a little vacation in and of itself.

5.20.25
One of the new releases I've been enjoying this year has been from Welsh jangle pop group the Tubs, one of the many bands that came into being after the band Joanna Gruesome called it quits (all three founding members of the Tubs were in that band, and they also play in various other groups that include other Gruesome members). So when I saw they were embarking on their first tour of the US and their stop in Atlanta was at one of my absolute favorite venues (the Earl in East Atlanta), I immediately got a ticket for myself.

Even though the Tubs were my motivation to go to the concert, they were actually just the opening band. The headliners were the Wedding Present, the venerable indie rock band from Leeds who got their start in the 80s and who I've heard of for a long time but never actually listened to. They also lean into hyperspeed jangle rock, so the pairing of these two groups made a lot of sense. The Wedding Present were doing at 35th anniversary tour of their second album, Bizzaro, so I bought that and listened to it a few times before the concert.

Both bands had great energy and were a ton of fun to watch, but the Wedding Present hands down owned the stage. Frontman David Gedge (the only remaining member from the original lineup) had great charisma and stage present, and live versions of the songs had an intensity and an edge that are lacking on the studio tracks (although Bizzaro is a great record and well worth owning). I was glad to see the Tubs on their first American outing, and I'll definitely go see them again if I have the chance, but the Wedding Present were one of the best live shows I've seen in the past couple of years. A great double bill though—either band would have been worth the price of admission, and their was a synergy to their songs that worked in both of their favors.

5.21.25
It's been nearly a decade since Noah Lennox's main gig, Animal Collective, have released a record that I fully enjoyed, and over a dozen years since they released one that I loved. But as a solo artist, Panda Bear has been hitting out of the park recently. His collaboration with Sonic Boom, Reset, was one of my favorite releases of 2022, and Sinister Grift has the same mellow, 50s-60's beach-infused vibe and could be seen almost as a companion piece to that record.

I did not expect this Curacao Blue variant to become my white whale for 2025, but despite preordering this from Rough Trade back in November 2024 for a late February 2025 release, I didn't receive this record until just a couple of weeks ago. And I didn't receive it from Rough Trade either: they switched over to a new payment system and packaging/delivery partner in early February, which played all sorts of havoc with preorders placed before the switchover.

I first reached out to them two weeks after the album was released to inquire about the shipping status, and they assured me they were just getting caught up with a backlog and it would ship soon. I gave them another two weeks and got the same response, and in the meantime, two other preorders that were both ordered and released after Sinister Grift (and both placed before the payment switch) were shipped to me. So while I hoped maybe the Rough Trade copy would eventually make its way to me, I started looking for other options.

My first try was ordering from a Dutch site that I've had good luck with before (my cost in US dollars, including shipping, was pretty much the same as ordering from Rough Trade's US site), and they listed a shipping date of mid-April, a couple of weeks after I placed my order. But that date came and went, and when I check on the status on their website, it had now changed to an indeterminate ship date, and it appeared as if it was now out of stock despite supposedly being in stock when I placed my order.

Around this same time, Rough Trade canceled my order without explanation or a goodwill discount, so I turned to Discogs to find a copy that was hopefully not too much above retail. My first try was only $5 above retail, but two days after I placed my order, the seller canceled and refunded, saying they were mistaken about it being in stock. So I tried again with a seller who had it listed for about $10 above retail, and finally received this copy about a week after that.

Altogether that was four separate purchases over the course of about six months, with three of them canceled and refunded, before I finally received this about three months after its initial release. But it's an amazing record (I've been listening digitally since the original release date), and I'm happy that this saga has finally come to a happy resolution.

5.22.25
I finished watching the new-ish Daredevil: Born Again series, and overall was pretty happy with it. The casting of many of the principal characters—Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock/Daredevil, Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk/Kingpin, and Jon Bernthal as the Punisher—is spot on, and I'm hopeful that this series means that Daredevil (along with the X-Men) will be integrated into the MCU in the next couple of years.

My biggest issue with it was that we just didn't get enough of Daredevil and Kingpin. Both characters were trying to walk away from their previous lives, Matt Murdoch as a masked vigilante and Wilson Fisk as a violent crime boss, and embrace more socially acceptable roles as a lawyer and the mayor respectively. They both still inhabit elements of those earlier personas, but they are both swimming against their natural currents and trying to escape their pasts.

We eventually get back to them doing what we really want to see them doing (like Tony Soprano, Kingpin is a crime boss that you sometimes find yourself sympathizing with and admiring despite his brutal, sociopathic tendencies, especially as played by the enigmatic D'Onofrio), and it just leaves you wanting more of that. So maybe we'll get that as part of the MCU, or maybe we'll get another season that's a little more episodic instead of one big arc that plays out over the course of a whole season. But it's a nice return to form, and it's great that they were able to retain the key players from the Netflix-produced versions of these characters.

5.28.25
Will's last day of 9th grade was last Friday, and as has been our tradition since kindergarten, we went out to eat at Downwind, the little restaurant at Peachtree-DeKalb Airport that has a deck which overlooks the runways so you can watch all the private jets taking off and landing while you eat. Afterwards we went to the Frosty Caboose—an ice cream shop that runs out of an old train caboose that is situated right next to the train tracks—for dessert.

For his end-of-year gift, we gave him a Minecraft Braves jersey that was part of a promotional giveaway at Truist a few weeks ago. Will has been a Minecraft player for a long time, and he and his friends are obsessed with the recently released movie, so even though we weren't able to make it to Truist on the night of the giveaway, I found one on eBay a couple of days later for a reasonable price and kept it as a surprise for him.

We spent a long time searching for the right school for him, and although this year was pretty great in many respects—he has some teachers who support him, he made a lot of friends, he got to go to Thailand for 10 days on a school trip, and he did pretty well academically—I don't know what the future holds in regards to this school. A ton of his friends either left during the school year or announced that they wouldn't be returning, and we're very concerned that the high school doesn't have enough students to survive for more than another year or so (and even if it does, we're concerned about the quality of the education he'll receive without a robust student body and experienced teaching staff).

So we're going to hope for the best but prepare for the worst this summer, investigating what we need to do if he needs to transfer to the local public high school mid-semester next year. Maybe they'll be able to do some serious recruiting and build back up the class sizes over the summer and everything will work out, but we don't want to be caught in a bad situation without a plan, and we want Will to be fully bought in to a plan B if that becomes necessary.

5.29.25
We've been TiVo users for a long, long time now—since sometime in the late 90s I think. Even though we're still cable subscribers, I've always like to have my own devices (including my own modem and router) so we can control when they get replaced, and so less of our personal information is available to the cable company.

TiVos connect to the cable network via something called a CableCard, which cable providers were required to support until a few years ago. You get a CableCard from your provider (they were required to provide up to two for free), insert it into the TiVo, and do an authorization call with the provider, and you then have access to all of your channels and the schedule guide through the TiVo.

Last year our provider (like most of the big cable providers) announced that they would no longer send out or authorize new CableCards, as they are no longer required to offer them and the technology is pretty outdated. But they made it sound like as long as your current CableCard was functioning, they would continue to support it. So when the hard drive of our TiVo box a couple of weeks ago, I didn't think anything of ordering a new box from TiVo, because it would just be a matter of putting the existing CableCard into the new box and everything should be good to go.

However, when the new TiVo arrived and I called the cable company's customer service to get the CableCard paired with the new device, I was told that they wouldn't support this. I always asked to be transferred to a supervisor or a specialist, and ended up spending hours on the phone with them until I finally got to someone who had the power to update our account settings and was sympathetic to our problem. However, even after she said everything looked like it should be working on her end, we were still getting "Channel Not Authorized" messages on our TiVo box, and I thought maybe that was the end of our run with TiVo.

The tech I worked with said it sometimes takes a few days for the changes to populate through the network, so there's still a chance our TiVo box could come back to life and work until either its hard drive fails or our provider stops supporting CableCards entirely. But in case it doesn't, we've been exploring streaming live TV options through YouTube, Hulu, and Sling, and have settled on YouTube TV as the service with the best price/features for our needs. I bought a month of it, so even if our TiVo starts working again, I'll take some time to compare them side by side (along with our provider's native app that you can use instead of one of their DVR boxes) and decide whether it's time to move on from cable entirely.