Features

Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam 

Bat for Lashes – Fur and Gold 

Grizzly Bear - Friend EP (not an album, I know. But I’ll be damned if it doesn’t play like one).  

And I can’t say Radiohead, because well…c’mon, it’s Radiohead. It stands by itself.

Man Man – The First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia last spring. It was the first time I remember seeing them headline at the church, and it was sold out at least four days before the show even happened. When I got there, there were tons of kids getting dropped off by their parents, really young kids...like I’m talking 11 or 12 or something. People were starting mosh pits, going absolutely apeshit. It was a far cry from the early shows, where most of the crowd just stood there scratching their heads and going "What the hell?!"
 
I remember thinking “Holy shit, Man Man ain’t just for breakfast anymore…”

We recently purchased these Native American “shin bells” for our live shows. You strap them to your legs, and about a hundred bells jangle every time you stomp your foot. Needless to say, every moment on stage since we bought those is a blast for me.

Call me crazy, but I never really gave Stevie Wonder’s Talking Book an honest listen until this past summer. It’s staggering how dense that album is; how unmatched Stevie Wonder is with arranging albums start to finish. Easily the most focused, unadulterated album about love ever made. It’s perfect in every way.

No Country for Old Men - based solely on the fact no one in the band can shut up about it since we saw it last month. 

Brandon Bird. He’s this incredible pop-culture artist who does super-realistic paintings; everything from a num-chucking , shirtless Jerry Seinfeld to the cast of Coach to Christopher Walken building a robot in his garage. I heard he’s writing a book next year. Ah!
 
Oh yeah, and Man Man's new record drops in the spring. So uh, yeah...

A hot bubble bath, two bags of Milano cookies, and Yanni’s greatest hits album playing softly on my waterproof boombox . Plus a few ounces of blow.

Driving 6 hours to play a show in Pittsburgh somewhere, opening for a band called the Maxi-Pads (Yes, they actually threw them at the audiences at the end of their set…new ones of course) That show sucked, just like the city it was held in.

2 Girls 1 Cup. I refuse to give you the link, because it’s too despicable of a video to actually endorse. Let’s just say I saw it. The whole band saw it. And, well. We will never be the same again.