LWA Blog — blog

I recently read Miki Berenyi's Fingers Crossed: How Music Saved Me from Success. Kinda crazy, but maybe not really, how much shit she talks about Emma Anderson. There's love and friendship there but there are also two different people with different agendas that sometimes overlapped. Makes the run they had all that much more impressive. Also, it's amazing to me how small their circles were in those days. Seems like they were always running into or hanging out with someone from another band I love from those days. She's pretty resilient for having survived that traumatic childhood (just an observation, not...

I've been following Fever Ray since 2009, when I was visiting my friend Joseph in LA and the first single dropped the day I drove to his place. I hadn't heard anything about it when he mentioned it and then we listened to If I Had a Heart. It was a weirdly foggy night in LA, so that combined with the menacing tones and that haunting voice. Man, it still sticks in my head after all these years. I ended up seeing Fever Ray on that tour. The stage was dimly lit, the fog machine got a workout and laser lights illuminated that fog...

Really into Nicole Dollanganger's new album. Lost track of her after Natural Born Losers but this one has brought me back into the fold. Dreamy and haunting, plus I love her ghostly, wispy voice.  Married in Mount Airy by Nicole Dollanganger

Fell into a Book of Love rabbit hole because I watched The Silence of the Lambs the other day. So, in the film, (Book of Love keyboardist) Lauren Roselli plays Stacy, the friend of Fredrica (who was the first girl murdered by Jame Gumb). Clarice has an epiphany and goes to re-interview Stacy. While the interview is taking place, Book of Love's Sunny Day plays in the background. Weird coincidence, right? Anyways, after that, I put on the first Book of Love album (which is still a banger, btw). I started looking around to see if they're still active or anything...

Tom Waits' Closing Time is hitting its 50th anniversary (6 March 1973). This album kicked off the career of an American original. He was already five albums deep by the time I found him (Blue Valentine 1978). I was 13 or 14, and I had just gotten into Rickie Lee Jones' excellent first album (self-titled 1979). I remember reading some piece in which the author called her "the female Tom Waits." So I looked into it and found out that they were even romantically entangled for a bit, and RLJ was on the back cover of Blue Valentine. I also discovered my birthplace...