The Lemonheads came to Chicago...

Photo by Barry Brecheisen

My review of the recent The Lemonheads and Juliana Hatfield show at Metro is up at Third Coast Review for your reading pleasure!

Everything old is new again, and I see blue skies ahead.

I have noticed a number of what I would consider "old school bloggers" returning to semi-regular posting after, for some, years of leaving those domains untended. My own little website still gets a healthy amount of traffic, which means people actually come here intentionally to read what I write. And I have long maintained I'd rather have a smaller audience that seeks out my work, than a massive audience that only accesses it as bits and bobs of information disseminated through various social media platforms. As those platforms degrade and buckle under their own weight, I believe people are thirsting for content that feels personal and well-thought out, as they grow ever wearier of content that feels more and more diffuse as it becomes less relatable since most social media platforms have evolved to perform best as outrage machines.* 

So bring back the old-timey blogs! Some of us never left, and everyone is welcome!

*While I have always viewed things like Substack and Medium as "nü-blogging," those outlets still seem to attract writers who think that 1000 words of content with very little meat that is designed for clicks instead of close reads, counts as a post; so many of those "bloggers" have revealed themselves to simply be pretty boring, in my humble opinion.

Bang Camaro returns with "Too Fast To Fall In Love!"

Bang Camaro is back, baby! The group popped onto the scene in the mid-aughts, pairing hard rock guitars threaded with hooks galore, with thundering drums and bass, and a multi-person choir of participants providing the vocals for each song. At the time, I wondered if it was just a joke gone too far, but after seeing the group live at Double Door in 2008 I realized they were the real deal: passionate about the music without even a hint of irony hiding in their approach.

The band disbanded (went on hiatus?) years ago, but when James Gunn used one of Bang Camaro's songs in his Peacemaker series, the group was inspired to quietly reconnect and start recording new music. And this week, the first fruits of their new labor became available, the hard-charging and anthemic "Too Fast To Fall In Love."

The band is hard at work on more new songs, and I'm told we should all keep an eye ion them in the coming months for news about their future endeavors, but since today is Bandcamp Friday, it's the perfect time to pick up the track for yourself, to tide you over as we all wait.