u/GilbertDauterive-35

So I'm not talking about Play It All Night Long or Mama Bake a Pie, I mean the stuff they've played in concerts but have never given a proper release.

I'm a huge fan of their cover of I'm Eighteen by Alice Cooper, luckily they played that the last two times I saw them. I also really like their cover of Rocking in the Free World by Neil Young.

"Where the Devil Don't Stay" - Drive-by Truckers

Jugs and jars from shiners, these old boys here, they ain't miners

They came from the twenty-niners

It didn't take a hole in the ground to put the bottom in their face

When I first heard this song I thought twenty-niners was a reference to 1929 and it was about men that started moonshining to make ends meet during the Great Depression.

It's actually a reference to the Alabama Gold Rush of 1829, though in my defense my great grandfather ran moonshine once during the Depression and panicked after seeing a cop, dumping his load per family legend, so that was on my mind when I first heard the song.

I like "We are the sons of no one" more than "wait on the sons of no one" in Bastards of Young by the Replacements.

What are some of yours?

My lease runs out for my current place in March, but I'm looking around, I need to be in a place a little cheaper. What do you think of this place? The base rent looks reasonable, but are there any additional fees? Thank you!

I was born in 1987, the first musician death I can remember is Jerry Garcia

Thank you!

I've been thinking about (and currently listening to) Vic Chesnutt today. He was an absolutely incredible indie folk musician who sadly was in a terrible car accident when he was 18 and was paralyzed from the chest down, and even then he had rudimentary use of his arms, allowing him to only play simple cords. But his honesty and keen lyrical skills makes him so special. He had a rough life for sure, but he used it to make some great music.

What are some other disabled musicians?

Drive-by Truckers

This is probably the biggest one seeing as they are one of my favorite bands and I know every song by heart. When I was around 13 my dad took me to see "Lynyrd Skynyrd" and they opened for the. I was blown away and talked about them more than the main act.

Kobanova

I saw them open for Robert Jon and the Wreck, once again I was really impressed.

CorMae

My latest obsession. I saw them open for of Montreal last week and I loved it, they put on one hell of a show. Absolutely fantastic stage presence.

Alright I know it's not QUITE the halfway point of the year, but I'll be very busy for the next few days, so here y'all go

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1. Eric Bibb - One Mississippi

2. Langhorne Slim - The Dreamin' Kind

3. Old Crow Medicine Show - Union Made

4. Cola - Cost of Living Adjustment

5. Marlon Magnee - Dark Star

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6. Snail Mail - Ricochet

7. Courtney Andrews - Valentine

8. Willie Nelson - Dream Chaser

9. The Lemon Twigs - Look for Your Mind!

10. Gia Margaret - Singing

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11. Dry Cleaning - Secret Love

12. Ratboys - Singin' to an Empty Chair

13. Alice Costelloe - Move On With the Year

14. Beatrix - We Swallowed the Sky

15. Sungaze - I'm No Longer Afraid of Heights

I mentioned this on the Lizzo post but I wanted to talk about it more in depth- Is it hypocrisy, ultimately what kills a career now?

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If you missed it Lizzo's new album tanked about as bad as it could. She went from debuting at #2 to being out sold by Michael Bubble's Christmas album in June in a single album cycle. It's hard not to think that Lizzo, who built so much of her identity on positivity being revealed to be not that way at all caused her fans to turn on her. The same thing happened to Ellen DeGeneres, all of her brand was about how nice she is and her mean streak being made public killed her career.

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You can see this in other cases too, it's hard not to think the reason Bill Cosby fell as hard as he did is because to do many 80s kids he was the ideal father. I think that's probably the reason Michael Jackson was mocked so much too, as creepy as his hanging out with children is seen now (and I don't feel like fighting with his stans), if you look back at how it was largely portrayed in the 80s it was seen as a case of a kind hearted man who just wanted to share his wealth with children.

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And none of this is totally without reason. There's an episode of The Simpsons where Bart and Milhouse find Comic Book Guy's secret video stash. One of the videos is "Mr. Rogers Drunk" of course it wouldn't be funny if it was Ozzy Osbourne instead.

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That also may be why Chris Brown still has a career, he never went out of his way to make himself appear to be a kind person.

I'm trying to declutter and I found a box of some of my old hockey cards from when I was a kid. What is the best place in town to sell them?

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Now, I'm not expecting much. These are, for the most part from the late 90s and early 00s and were made to collect so they aren't worth that much now. I still have some cool stuff, I have Jagr's rookie card plus some of those cards where they actually included a piece of a jersey or the boards in the card itself. A few cards are signed, they are authentic as most of them were signed before packing them. Nothing is graded, but they are in good shape.

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Like I said, I'm not expecting much, but I really don't have a use for them anymore. Thank you.

There are exceptions for sure, but in most genres an artist's early to mid career albums are better regarded. There is some range here, pop tends more unforgiving to an artist as they age and metal tends to reward later careers more, but blues is different. As an artist age they tend to be seen as getting better, something that's almost certainly due the genre's focus on "paying your dues." Roy Buchanan and Luther Allison come to mind here. Eric Bibb too, he's actually been more productive and better regarded since turning 50 than he was before turning 50. Another person I'm a big fan of, Robert Finley, didn't even record his first album until he was 62.

Do any other genres fall into this?

I'm talking about stuff you're only kind of into normally, but go for when working out.

For me it's power metal. I like power metal, but there's plenty of other metal subgenres I like more, I'm primarily a doom and sludge guy. Sabaton is my favorite power metal band followed by Helloween and then Grave Digger.

But when I'm working out it just hits, there's something about the hooks and the fantasy/ military vocals that feels better when I'm at the gym in a way the slower tempo of doom and sludge doesn't, even as I overall prefer those.

The Squalls' Na Na Na Na was inspired by the Adam West Batman theme.

And of course the Dickies have an incredible cover of The Banana Split theme.

What are some others?

My goal was to hit somewhere between 120 and 150 for this year. I think I'm making a good pace

So far it's been a really good year for underground country and alternative/ indie.

Metal has been all over the place, ranging from great (A Forest of Stars), to mediocre (Megadeth), to horrible (Rob Zombie).

Hip hop has been terrible. I wasn't expecting much from Drake to begin with, but it was actually worse than expected. I was pretty shocked by how bad Kayne was too. So far the only album I've really liked was Freedom of Speech, but even that should have been cut a little bit. The joke goes on for far too long.

I am taking recommendations though, I need to salvage this year.

If you were curious

First album of 2026: Dry Cleaning- Secret Love

Last album (so far): Deer Tick - Coin-O-Matic

Best album so far: Eric Bibb - One Mississippi

Worst album: Drake - Take your pick, but I might dislike Iceman a little more because at least the other two were fairly short

In the Summer in Paradise video Todd mentions how kind the 1980s were in reviving the careers of 1960s (including the early 70s) icons. And while this might be true in the sense that a lot of people found a new audience, it's not true in the sense of actually making good music in the 80s as so much of it is terrible.

Bob Dylan, Neil Young (save for the very end of the decade), Paul McCartney, Sparks and more were all at career low points creatively at least.

Even the Beach Boys didn't have a good 1980s creatively, that's the point Mike Love took over the band and turned it into a bloated nostalgia driven corpse.