🎧 Downbeat.fm Vol. 6 Track 1
Earlier in January, we saw the passing of David Lynch. Lynch was someone whose name I knew going back to February 1997. I know this because it was when the Lost Highway soundtrack came out. I was just about 16 years old and a big Nine Inch Nails fan and I found out somehow that Reznor was both producing the soundtrack, and was on a few tracks along with a few other artists that I liked at the time.
I never ended up seeing the movie, or anything else by Lynch, though I'm not entirely sure why.
Lynch, like other artists such as Anthony Bourdain, Frank Zappa and others always felt like artists/creators that I would really like, but for some reason or another, I was never exposed to in my formative years and musical awakening - and ultimately never got around to over the years.
It's always interesting to me when I see where the Venn diagrams of interests overlap in my friend groups. A lot of the connections that I've made, especially online, have been around art - movies, music, comics.
As always, fuck Trump. Fuck Nazis.
January's Playlist
This month’s playlist features Thursday, Hannah Cole, Stef Chura, Sorry, Horsegirl, Palehound, Momma, and more!
Listen to this month's playlist on:
Quick Listening and Other Links
The world sadly also lost Marianne Faithfull. I didn't really know her music at all, and my first real experience with her was on Metallica's The Memory Remains from 1997's ReLoad.
Over on Bluesky, Jeff Lyons put together playlists of 90s alt rock bands performing on David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, and Jon Stewart. What a great trip down memory lane.
Former MTV VJ Matt Pinfield suffered a massive stroke, and from what I've read in the latest reports is that he is not in a good spot. I remember loving when Matt Pinfield was on MTV - he was a rock guy and was always talking about and show casing rock bands when they were being featured less and less as the 90s went on and hip hop started taking over as the more popular genre.
In an interview with IndieWire Ed Norton, one of my favorite actors, talked about Bruce Springsteen, one of my favorite artists during the press tour for the Bob Dylan biopic "A Complete Unknown". In it he said:
And Bruce, to me, he’s 100 percent, no question whatsoever, the Pete Seeger of our generation and our time. He’s the guy who really actually took up the mantle. Not just obviously singing songs about working people, singing about the emotional and economic plight of working people and their struggles. But he also took up the flag of political engagement. Way more than Dylan. And I’d argue more than anyone, since Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen has been the troubadour of the working man and also an unapologetic deployer of music toward political progressive humanism. He’s a force.
We watched this Questlove documentary about the music of SNL as they celebrate 50 years on air. It's very cool and worth watching in full on Peacock.
One of my favorite bands Rilo Kiley, who I never got to see live before they broke up are about to go on a reunion tour this year and I am SO pumped.
