I’ve been working on the guitar parts for “Kid” by the Pretenders. I’m what I’d call a “good shitty guitar player,” having stuck with it since fourteen. The song has an exceptionally pretty solo penned by James Honeyman-Scott. Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr incorporated it into his warmup routine prior to every show. The song has […]
Category Archives: Posting
All Sixes and Sevens and Nines
Saturday, December 27, 2025
I was talking with my niece about Rolexes on Christmas night. I developed an interest in watches some years back as one does when he runs out of things to be interested in. I’ve purchased quite a few of them but never a Rolex. I could probably afford a low-end one if I pooled the […]
Green Onions
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Neil Young, like all deserving of the title aging iconic rocker, has turned into a bit of kook. Not that there’s anything wrong with this. He’s performed with everybody, including the fabulously understated Telecaster player Steve Cropper who died this week at 84. Cropper knew a few things about what to leave out, a trick […]
Late Night Thursdays
Saturday, August 23, 2025
I had a vague plan back in 2004 to move to Scotland. It came to me while sitting in a mostly empty Upper West Side sublet on West 86th in New York City. I liked the place and added some tall red curtains to cover the large street-facing windows. I also bought a few dishes […]
And In Walked Den
Saturday, May 17, 2025
The trouble with eulogizing Denis Munro is that one wants to consult Denis Munro. His prose was lean, his words precise and his recall phenomenal. He enjoyed language in all forms and saved newspaper clippings for humorous reference. Of particular interest were the obituaries in the Perthshire Advertiser and bereaved family members who, much to […]
Spears
Saturday, February 8, 2025
John Spears died a few Saturdays back. He had various handles: “John Costin Vincent Spears,” “JCVS,” or, more often than not, simply “Spears.” I knew him well and yet could probably count on one hand the number of times I called him John. There were other less formal tags, some but not all applied by […]
Grimaldi’s Head
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Time marches forward and waits for no man. Nowhere is this more apparent than the South Ferry subway station in the chilled wee hours of a Sunday morning in December, half crocked on good whisky following a rare appearance at a holiday party. I’d appear more if I felt less conspicuous; less alone, sweaty and […]
I Had Some Help
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
.. they say teamwork makes it dreamwork – Post Malone Damn straight, Post Toasty. To start with you lifted the opening riff from T.P.’s “Learning to Fly.” If you’re gonna steal, steal well, I always say. We all need a little help, particularly with those white boy hip-hop to country transitions. Everybody seems so angry these […]
Mayday
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks – Tom Petty It’s the fifth of May and there’s snow on my deck. A full foot of it by my estimation. I was driving to the 7-11 in a whiteout blizzard last night for a bag of cookies and premade sandwich, thinking “really? …” But weather […]
Diggin’ up Bones
Saturday, December 30, 2023
“I’m back ..” – Ace Frehley It temporarily wipes the slate clean. Makes you forget old regrets like backing down to Bill Shubin in eighth grade or letting Dave Rios call you ‘fuckface’ in front of Michelle Giacchino at high school scheduling. Erases the times you should have pulled the trigger but didn’t, opens that […]