True Romance By Taylor K. Long This Valentine's Day, enjoy this collection of a handful of my favorite "love songs" and songs about love. Whether you are part of a duo or flying solo-remember this piece of advice: I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and things seemed to be getting so shitty. And he'd say,"That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too." That's the way romance is... Usually, that's the way it goes, but every once in awhile, it goes the other way too. You can download the entire mix, here, or [...]
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For By Taylor K. Long The following is a list of amusing search terms that, according to Google Analytics, have led people to this site: morrissey naked things related to music song lyrics about turning 24 802s rap song video by the pool booty shaking brands related to music congeniality means delivery routes turned horny initmate scene from the movie the wedding date 2011 most enjoyable movies sexually naked morrissey sexuality man and woman teenage hormones my impressions of a concert i attended baseball team goes boy band sex families the melody [...]
Love Me Now, When I'm Gone, Love Me None By Taylor K. Long For an emotional R&B singing moniker, Christopher Breaux aka Frank Ocean couldn’t have done much better. Writers often use water metaphors – an ocean, in particular – to represent feelings, emotions, and hidden...
By Vincent Rendoni I’m visiting my family in Washington. I’ve only been at my mother’s house for about four hours, but I’m already reaching for a couple of beers. I take them from the outside fridge, and speed past barking dogs and bickering relatives to my mother’s deck. I close the sliding glass door and suddenly it’s quiet. I light a citronella candle to fend off mosquitoes and crane flies, sit myself in a lounge chair out of sight from my family, and take in the sunset over Puget Sound. I have this one rule: I don’t drink alone. Except [...]
All My Life I Will Wait To Attain It By Taylor K. Long At some point in our 20s, we inevitably feel what can best be described as a burden of proof. We begin noticing milestones, the age of achievements. How Michelangelo was 29 when he finished “David.” How Franz Liszt was famous and touring Europe by the age of 30. The stream of brilliant young minds is endless; every generation will have its Mark Zuckerbergs and Beyoncés and Téa Obrehts to compare themselves to. This feeling causes us to scratch at the walls, imagined or otherwise, desperate to push [...]
By Howard Lee Lyon Best Philosophically Poignant Fox: Antichrist Best Movie That I Will Probably Never Watch Again: Enter the Void Best Violent Australian Mob Family: Animal Kingdom Best Movie That Came Out Before My Mother Was Born: Out of the Past Best Herzog: My Son, My Son What Have Ye Done Best Proof That The US is Run By Self-Interested, Crony-Capitalistic Cheats, That Will Ultimately Lead to The Fall of Western Civilization: Inside Job Best Movie That I’ve Always Heard Of And Finally Watched: Basic Instinct Most Tolerable ‘Rom-Com’: I Love You, Phillip Morris Strangest Intersection of Plot Lines: Targets [...]
By Davis McGraw I suck at keeping up with new releases, but I’m a sucker for show & tell. Here are five records that I heard in 2011 and deserve a good listen. 5. Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes: Havin’ A Party With Southside Johnny (1979) [Goodwill in Laconia, August] Johnny found his way into my collection near the end of a brief serendipitous streak, and for that I thank him. Much like the Boss, these boardwalk boys know their escapism back & forth. 4. Ry Cooder: Paris, Texas (1985) [Burlington Records, September] I remember watching Paris, Texas for [...]
By Davis McGraw In addition to unskilled labor, songwriting and looking for pre-1979 Fleetwood Mac records at yard sales, my human experience has been defined, for better or worse, by days and nights spent in cheap diners. This column is about all those times, tracks, faces, plates and places. While growing up in Vermont, a hallmark of the summertime was the after-dinner walk my family took once or twice a week. We’d leave with the sun still peeking over the treetops, casting long shadows on the warm pavement as we strolled down the hill from our quiet neighborhood cluster into [...]
By Aaron Dubanevich I am not a writer. I’m descended from a writer, but it’s not something I aspire to. I’m writing this out of desperation, hoping that putting it on paper will make it easier to put it away. There will be times when I skip details, or I don’t remember exactly what someone said or precise sequences of events, but that doesn’t matter. The important parts are already in the historical record. I guess you could call this a confession, though I’m not sure what I’m confessing. No philosophical preamble, no foreshadowing. I’ll just start where it started: [...]
Last episode, Taylor K. Brown and I, Taylor K. Long, took you through the wild world of Katy Perry, Kanye West, sci-fi, sex metaphors, R. Kelly, Fleet Foxes and Starbucks. If you missed it, you can relive the glory here. This time, the Taylors go through an in-depth personality analysis of David Lynch, and explore demographic requirements for Kid Cudi music videos, daring to ask the question: Why the hell is Drake here? Go forth, listen! Taylor on Taylor (A Podcast): Episode 2 (download/listen)
By Delia Paunescu Like many events in New York, the Tribeca Film Festival is the biggest deal for those participating. For everyone else, it’s another week or two of red carpets, guest lists and in-cab commercials. So it went for me the last few years – avoiding the crowds and escalated ticket prices – until I scored an all-day pass for the last day of the festival. As my first time there, and my first time at any film festival, I jumped into the madness feet first and saw five films in nine hours. Overall, the features I saw highlighted [...]
By Taylor K. Long While record browsing with a friend at Greenpoint’s Permanent Records last week, I found a copy of the Long Winters album, When I Pretend To Fall in the .99 section and realized that though I love it, I don’t own it in any physical form. The kind clerk informed me that .99 CDs were three for $1, so essentially I could pick out two more CDs for free. When deciding which CDs to get, I wondered, Should I pick something random and hope it’s good? What are the odds of something in the .99 section being [...]
Mr. Tie-Me-Up-Tie-Me-Down By Taylor K. Long Hollywood movies are seldom gracious to womankind, but romantic comedies in particular are terrible – designed to appeal to women while painting them with the widest, most unflattering brush possible, crafting tales of beautiful women who are neurotic, insecure, desperate and one-track-minded in their quest to meet a man and get married. Any time I enjoy a romantic comedy on any level, I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt for falling into a trap that Hollywood has so obviously set for me. But as a result, I am particularly intrigued about why [...]
What do you do when your name is Taylor and your friend's name is Taylor and you're both writers? You make a Podcast, of course! Inspired by our shared names and our mutual interest in dissecting the cultural world around us, Taylor K. Brown, T-Sides contributor, and your Editrix in Chief, Taylor K. Long have teamed together for a podcast. Episode 1 finds us talking about Katy Perry, Kanye West, Sci-Fi, sex metaphors, R. Kelly, Fleet Foxes, hipsters, Starbucks, and beyond. It's a mere 30 minutes, so it fits perfectly into your lunch break. Convenient, no? Taylor on Taylor (A [...]
I fell down the rabbit hole of the Internet a few weeks ago, while catching up with A Bright Wall In A Dark Room, a brilliant film blog. I was reading Bebe Ballroom’s essay on Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know....
“Love is a Rose.” Written in a car on my way to La Havana Maui from the airport. Recorded at the ranch during rehearsals for the CSNY ’74 reunion tour. Later done up well by Linda Ronstadt, a soulful girl with big brown eyes.
Love is a battley by Howard Lee Lyon By Howard Lee Lyon Some acquaintance (friend) was at the bar the other night pontificating freely, wrickedly raging upset and morbosed-out about some era-bygone classmate's commit to suicide. They found him that morning, bored a hole in his face with a piece of metal on metal quick-action, probably something semi-automatic. (One's gotta question that phrase, "semi-automatic." For us literate-brained querists, how is something "somewhat automatic"? Automatic sounds like a term dealing with absolutes and when you start adding prefixes to it, that means we got variants and degrees hidden in "automatics." Thus, [...]
If I Had An Orchard, I'd Work 'Til I'm Raw By Taylor K. Long Sometimes it feels like a song has been written with a piece of you. Like someone invaded your house when you weren’t there, sat on your bed with a cup of tea, and looked at your old photos, read all your e-mails, and all of your notebooks. This is what it feels like every time I hear "Helplessness Blues," the first single and title track from the Fleet Foxes’ second album. It feels like Robin Pecknold found a portal into my head, Being John Malkovich style. [...]
Phagwah Parade, by Taylor K. Long By Taylor K. Long My obsession with India could take up its own essay, its own series of essays, even, but it’s not nearly as complex or compelling as the country itself. My first exposure to the Hindu holiday of Holi (also known as Phagwa(h), or “Festival of Colors”) came via the Boston Globe’s photojournalism blog The Big Picture. Visions of India always conjure an array of bright colors, but none so much as Holi, in short a celebration welcoming the beginning of spring, where people cover eachother in colored powders and liquid dyes. [...]
T-Sides
Daft Punk: When anonymity goes wrong
Washed Out Announces New Album: Paracosm
Review: Body Language – Grammar [EP]
Daft Punk “Get Lucky” With 1st Top 10 Hit In America
