This list was inspired by Brad Nelson in another place, and their excellent idea of just smushing together the things which stood out in 2018 regardless of media or format or whatever else. In practice the list is distressingly limited in scope. It�[…]

(RUBRIC’n’RULEZ can be found in the first post)
1 To what See was Aramis appointed?
2 Who was credited with “style” by Calverley?
3 Who banished the three Fathers to Craggy Island?
4 Who was preferred to Dr Grantley for what position […]

Hello and happy new year! It is I, Cameron Mackintosh, the world’s most powerful and most 80s theatre producer. Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera, CATS – I’m kind of a big deal guys!!!!! 
Thanks Cam! On the principle that ev[…]

RUBRIC: welcome to the FreakyTrigger wing of a quiz sat for a hundred and funfty years by some lucky/isle of man schoolkids etc blah blah bloop. Themed sets of 10 questions each — a new one every day (or so). COLLABORATIN’ COMMENT CREW (C[…]

Most Omar Rodríguez-López albums are released under his name, but there a few variations: El Trío de Omar Rodríguez-López, the Omar Rodríguez-López Quartet, the Omar Rodríguez-López Quintet, and when touring, the Omar Rodríguez-López Group[…]

“Greetings, I am the renowned, cross-eyed clairvoyant, Mystic Meg. I’m here, to predict, in a deliberately awkward intonation, that the numbers 3826546, and i, and the colour “bergerac”, will be impoooortant. People who stock […]

I’ve been stuck in a funk of late. Sadly, not a George Clinton-flavoured funk, but a stank, stuck funk of my own making. My compulsive need to trace the original sources for all the revised riffs, beats, and samples that crop up in later Omar Rodr�[…]

Being a melancholy appreciation on his passing of this nation’s pioneering reggae writer: the great PENNY REEL
“Sing great song, down inna Babylon, show them your culture, down inna Babylon”
— ‘M.P.L.A.’, Tapper Zukie
It was October 1978[…]

[This post originally went up at my PATREON: subscribers get to read posts and hear podcasts early — and help offset costs and time and help me do more of this kind of thing. Please share widely and encourage participation in the comments!]
A week […]

It would be inaccurate to say Octopus Kool Aid passed me by, but by the time I learned of its existence, I was too depressed about The Mars Volta’s breakup and too ready to blame this album for causing it. It’s only been recently that I’ve take[…]