The Grey area between Black and White (music review)

Some things work together so well, it’s hard to imagine them apart. In the food department, you’ve got peanut butter and jelly, or bacon and just about anything edible. For literature and TV, there’s  Sherlock and Watson, and a certain straight-laced chemistry teacher and his reckless, drug-addicted former student. Music’s no stranger to fusion either (the industry calls them collaborations or mashups), but very few are as unexpectedly mind-blowing as DJ Danger Mouse’s “The Grey Album“, which marries The Beatles’ “The White Album” with Jay-Z’s “The Black Album”.

The folk tales of Radical Face

I recently started getting into the music of Radical Face ever since two of my favorite TV shows, Criminal Minds and Bones, used one of his songs during some particularly poignant episodes. The single “The Gilded Hand” is dead-man-walking morose and pensive, the perfect background music to Sweets’ death and the execution of an inmate (hey, it’s been weeks since these episodes aired; you’ve had your chance). But don’t worry, Radical Face offers much more than just melancholic, folksy tunes.

The Eraserheads in 20 pages (and a CD)

For most people, leaving a mark while doing what they love is a pretty ambitious goal. You practice your craft, you work hard to turn a few (hopefully thousands of) heads, then you strive even more to stay in their consciousness. At this day and age, you’d be lucky to get your 15 minutes. So when you still generate the same effect decades later, you know you’ve got something special.