music

Recently I’ve been listening to a podcast by comedian Mike Birbiglia called Working It Out. Episode 4 is less his usual quasi-formatted approach to interviewing comedians and notable personalities, and is instead Mike and his wife Jen Hope Stein having a talk about collaborating on creative work with someone you’re married to, with Matt Berninger … Read more

To pair with my first year of keeping a song list–which includes every song my family and I added to our own various playlists through the year–I figured I’d do a top ten list of my favourites from those additions. Note that these aren’t necessarily new songs, but are new to me. Turn up your … Read more

This year I decided to make a new playlist that was comprised of all of the songs I added in 2020 to other playlists. It didn’t matter if it was to my Shower Tunes list, my Work Commute list (which are one in the same other than the latter has more swearing in it because … Read more

My daughter has been playing the ukulele for a couple of years now through school classes, and she’s getting pretty good at it. And as all parents can appreciate, it’s a big bonus that she actually likes playing it. Win-win. When the order for household isolation came down, the school was pretty quick to offer … Read more

My wife is a teacher in the provincial Catholic board, and as one of her many self-imposed duties, has taken it upon herself over the decades to introduce her students–a kind of suburban inner-city demographic–to music they will almost assuredly not have heard before. This isn’t (just) to say “My dudes, have you heard the … Read more

It’s being reported today that drumming legend Neil Peart passed away this Tuesday after battling brain cancer for the last three years. It’s difficult to put into words what Neil meant to me. As a young child, I was cradled in my mother’s arms and she would pat me to the rhythm of whatever music … Read more

Since we finally made the jump to a music streaming service—I was a steadfast CD purchaser until well after things like Apple Music and Spotify were commonplace—we’ve been (ok, I’ve been) going to town with playlists. I have one for commuting to work; there’s one for our daughter (always chasing down new songs she hears … Read more