Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | Do Stairway!
A bud of mine recently shared a YouTube link of the audio from Led Zeppelin’s March 16, 1973 show in Vienna, Austria. It was an astounding show, with a...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | Smarter Than The Average Dawg
According to his autobiography No Regrets, founding KISS lead guitarist Ace Frehley challenged the other members of the band to IQ tests. He never divulged what Gene Simmons, Paul...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | The Fab Switcheroo
Everybody knows Paul plays bass, John plays guitar, George plays lead guitar, Ringo is the drummer and they all sing. Except not always. In fact, as someone who likes...
Next Week in Music | April 24-30 • The Short List: 16 Titles You...
The National and Country Westerns, Rickie Lee Jones and Rush, a Sex Pistol and Elephant Rifle, Hawkwind and Silver Moth, The Damned and Del Barber — and more where...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | My Complicated Relationship With KISS
There are quite a few guilty pleasures in my record collection — but none more so than the hottest band in the world, KISS. I'm currently in the middle...
Thunder Pie | Always Running Like Robert Frost
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
— Robert Frost
Always running. Always hustling. To schools. To jobs. Always running to the supermarket for milk and bananas and...
Area Resident Shares His Record Store Day Want List
If you have any money left after buying copies of my new album Phosphene (out April 21 on cassette and CD, and in a few months on vinyl), there...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | One & Done
What do Gary Cherone and The Littlest Hobo have in common? Until tomorrow, they'll just keep movin' on. The lead vocalist made just one album with Van Halen, the...
Thunder Pie | Eggplant Parm In A Strip Mall
“I despise formal restaurants. I find all of that formality to be very base and vile. I would much rather eat potato chips on the sidewalk.”
— Werner Herzog
There was...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | All Together Now
There are so many great bands with more than one lead vocalist — Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, Hüsker Dü, XTC, Faces, The Kinks, Chicago, ZZ Top, Sonic Youth, Supertramp,...
Thunder Pie | Borrowed Fire / You Should Pay Me Back
“If you practice writing constantly, you can start to speak in poetry form and so whenever you feel like writing something, all you have to do is immediately write...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | Tombstone Blues
“Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it, we can all sit back and laugh
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.”
— Epitaph...
Area Resident | Phosphene: Exclusive Album Premiere + Track-By-Track
Doug Hempstead — the Clark Kent-like alter ego of Ottawa indie-rocker (and Tinnitist columnist / reviewer) Area Resident — endured a bit of a wild pandemic. When it began in March...
Area Resident’s Stylus Counsel | I’m Your Captain
When we were little boys in elementary school, a few of us decided to become "captain" superheroes for our recess adventures. One of my friends — I don't remember...
Thunder Pie | Things We Told Ourselves
“Conflict is the beginning of consciousness.”
— M. Esther Harding
What remains are the remnants of a bird. It is evaporated more or less. There are a few downy feathers that...
