MUSIC. RESPONSE. | “Untitled (Black is)” by Sault

Twenty-twenty. The year that just kept on giving and giving and saying “open wider!” and shoving more shit in. Information, disinformation, bad news, bad opinion, hot takes, and impressive…

MUSIC. RESPONSE. | “Rough and Rowdy Ways” by Bob Dylan

Twenty-twenty. The year when hugging was outlawed, and I may have started talking a lot to my fern. What’s that you say, Fergus? Oh, you don’t like today’s record….

MUSIC. RESPONSE. | “Wings Over America” by Paul McCartney

Twenty-twenty. The year when live music stage dived into a pit filled with heaving, hot bodies, and died, after which we were all forced to join a cloud crowd…

Music. Response. | “In my own Time” by Karen Dalton

“Yesterday, any way you made it was just fine.” These are the first words you hear Karen Dalton sing on “In My Own Time,” and in 2020, I made it with a little help from my record friends. This was one of them.

MUSIC. RESPONSE. | “Red Headed Stranger” by Willie Nelson

Music is like a jangly set of keys to a secret door. I don’t care how tightly guarded your thought fortress is, or what secrets you think you’re hiding in that head of yours, as the Village People told us, you can’t stop it.