Here I sit, up too late again. And I need some peace. As it seems like the whole world (or at least this country) is on fire, I need music to calm me, not bring out more aggression. I can find that elsewhere, thank you very much. So it was in this mood (and while reading a book about French pilots) that I decided to listen to some French jazz on Thursday evening. Much of it was instrumental, but even the vocal stuff might as well have been ... until it got to a particular song...

I can't imagine growing up anywhere except 102 Fall St. Oh, sure, the house had its faults. It was never tidy. It's a wonder it never burned down with Dad's approach to wiring — ironic since he was a firefighter. And it was a creaky, drafty old place, to the point that if you woke up needing to pee in the middle of the night, you debated just holding it until morning lest you leave the warmth of your bed...

For all the times I've written about songs in this space, I'm not sure I've ever tackled the Beatles because ... well, let's face it, they're the Beatles. It's been done ... millions of times. Often, I'd rather take on a song by someone like the Replacements or Blind Melon or Faces that you've never heard, or at least haven't thought of in a long time...

Today marks the beginning of my favorite month of the year. Is it because of Christmas? Well, sure, but also just the time of year in general. The high sort of starts with Thanksgiving, continues with my birthday on Dec. 8, then glides into Christmas and on to New Year's...

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! In honor of this great holiday, I'll be watching my favorite Thanksgiving movie (and perhaps favorite movie, period), "The Last Waltz." It's really not all that Thanksgiving-y except that The Band played its farewell concert on Thanksgiving in 1976, and this wonderful film documents that concert...

Anybody else have a song they don't really get by an artist they otherwise love? I'm not talking the "Oh, I LOVE Radiohead but 'Creep' is SO overrated" crowd. That's more of a rock snob take, the kind of thing you say if you're a "true believer" and others aren't. I've been known to act that way once in a while, but I'm getting better...

While driving down East Washington Street recently, I find that I’ve been chuckling to myself. If you drive the street often, you’ve likely noticed the same house that has me smiling. To the west of the front walkway is a “Trump Pence: Keep America Great” sign. To the east? It says, “United for Biden.”...

I’ve long wanted entrance music -- something that starts playing before you can even see me, making people think, “Oh, man! It’s about to get real!” Wrestlers have it. Baseball players have it. While I was never physically talented enough to merit my own musical prelude in either of those pursuits, I fancy myself a reasonably talented writer...

Wednesday marked the end of an era in West Lafayette, as the Neon Cactus announced it has closed its doors permanently...

This evening I learned of the unexpected news that Justin Townes Earle had died. The news was unexpected, as Justin was only 38. He definitely had some demons with substance abuse over the years, same as his father Steve and his namesake, the late (great) Townes Van Zandt...

If you listened to county radio in the late 1980s, Rodney Crowell was pretty much inescapable. Rightly so. Crowell’s 1988 effort “Diamonds and Dirt” produced five consecutive No. 1 hits — “It’s Such a Small World” (a duet with then-wife Rosanne Cash), “I Couldn’t Leave You If I Tried,” “She’s Crazy for Leavin’,” “After All This Time” and “Above and Beyond.”...

While I consider Greencastle my home, I know there are things that separate me from people my age who grew up here. I see evidence of this in the way I address certain people. I know you're a native — or at least a longtime resident — if you address Tom Graffis as "Dr. Graffis."...

Most of my favorite songs were written by people in their 20s or early 30s. Having put those years behind me a while back, I feel a sense of awe at the old souls who managed to write such profound things at a young age...

In the early 1990s, rock fans were looking for something new and different. As the youth of the nation grew tired of the way music had looked and sounded for the past 20 years, we looked underground to find a new sound that would define us...

I was briefly at my wife's office this morning, dropping something off in the fridge while she watered the flowers out front. As she started to water, she let out an exclamation and handed me a cigarette butt from the flower pot. "Who puts out a cigarette in a flower pot?" she asked...

Perhaps the strangest thing in thinking back to musicians who died young is to think of them actually getting old. Think about Buddy Holly. To me, he was a true visionary of late-'50s rock 'n' roll. Less popular than Elvis, but a superior guitarist and man who wrote his own songs. ...

Ever notice how when your’re heartbroken, every song is about a broken heart? Or when you’re in love, every song is a love song? It’s no coincidence. Really good songs are a sort of mirror -- specific enough to be genuine, but general enough for us to feel them as our own...

Remember going to concerts? I loved going to concerts. Perhaps I'll do that again someday. When I go to live shows, I'm a sucker for a good opening act. Throw two or three good songs in your opening set and there's a good chance I'll wind up at the merch table before the headliner comes on, as records in my collection from Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, Griffin House, the Henry Clay People, Andrew Ripp, Raul Malo and the Diplomats of Solid Sound will attest...

I don't think I've ever tried to make a big deal about losing my mom almost nine years ago. I've written about it a few times here. I've never really made a big deal of it on social media. It's just rarely been the way I've chosen to remember her...

I grew up in a very white family, surrounded by very white music, save some Run DMC, Michael Jackson, Prince, Billy Ocean and a few others that crept in on MTV. There was not much funky going on at 102 Fall St. In fact, a few weeks ago, I found a playlist on Spotify called Jazz Funk. I loved it! But the deepest connections I had with some of the songs was thinking, "Hey, this sounds like the songs on Sesame Street."...