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I lost and old friend this week. We hadn’t been very close for quite a while—the last time I even spoke to him was a few years ago now. He was a pretty important person in my life for a good decade or so, though. Since funerals and celebrations of life aren’t really an option during a pandemic, I sort of feel the need to say a few nice things about a guy who frustrated, hurt, and offended, but also loved a lot of people. And a lot of people loved him back. To me, he was a compassionate and genuine friend.

Two years ago today, I got word that my office was moving to another city about 20 kilometers away, and that I would have to saddle up for a big kid commute. Well, two months ago, that day finally came. This is how it’s going.

I have been sufficiently scared and socially pressured into being a militant face mask influencer. The problem is that all of the pressure is on to make your own masks, and all the how-to videos I have watch have decimated my confidence.

I’ve been watching (and tipping!) a bunch of my favorite artists live stream on Instagram over the past few weeks. Some are better at it than others. Here are some tips to make the experience more pleasant for your viewers, and make it easier for them to tip you.

Alright, now that the Grammy Awards have all been passed out, let’s have a little reprieve, shall we? Each of the 15 albums in this list made a deep impression on me this year. Why 15? Because there were 15 of them. Here they are in alphabetical order.

My buddy Ivan uses this combo-ified 1963 Band-Master as his backup. It suffered from a phantom crackle that would only appear after being warmed up for an hour or two. It had been in and out of another shop for over a year, and the problem was never successfully addressed.

This data is taken from my last.fm account, and mostly reflects my private listening at work. This may more accurately reflect my personal preferences, though, as it is what I chose to listen to without being influenced by other people. My taste in metal seems to be getting more extreme.

Somewhere around a decade ago, the Bottom Dwellers’ PA head took a flaming shit. It started smoking. It was out of warranty, and rather than deal with repairs and not having a PA for a while, we replaced it with a Mackie PPM1008. Ever since then, the Carvin PA has functioned as my amp stand.

There is a small chain of music venues in Sacramento I frequent that has implemented ID scanning kiosks at their front doors. At first, I was a bit put off by this, but after doing a bit of research into the platform, I think I might be okay with it. You might not be, though. Here is what you should know.

I’ve seen a lot of live music this year, and I have had the chance to check out a lot of different venues in a lot of different towns. Some do it quite a bit better than others. Here are some easy ways music promoters can provide a much better experience for their patrons.