Under a Black Rainbow

I've always had a pretty widespread taste in music, ranging from metal to classical and a lot of in-between. There aren't a lot of genres I don't listen to, so I tend to find a lot that I like in the outskirts, either from friends' recommendations or just randomly thumbing through YouTube during my work day. I've come across some really great stuff that's been resonating with me recently, both emotionally and musically, so I I figured I'd do a little write up about what's been filling my headphones for the last couple months.  A lot of this will be too dark for most and definitely a little foreign, but I'd never steer you wrong when it comes to quality.  *** Michael Arthur Holloway - "Guilt Noir" Holloway was one of the first artists I stumbled across when seeking out a new genre I'd briefly heard about called "Doom Jazz." First off, I loved the name immediately, but then I took time to listen to many of the artists that seeme...

I have always had an appreciation for the dark and the weird, but it wasn't until I got to grad school that I realized I also appreciated that in my fiction. Primarily with books like " House of Leaves," "The People of Paper," and "The Book of Lazarus." For whatever reason, I found myself very comfortable in the chaos found on the pages of those books. They were fictional narratives that colored outside the lines and made their own distinct choices as to how they wanted to be told. They were original and bold and I was enthralled by the formatting and narrative possibilities they awakened in my own writing.  More often than not, I'm also drawn to the more challenging narratives found in film or art. I like the absolute weirdness found in David Lynch's work (specifically  Twin Peaks ), though I confess to not understanding a great deal of what he's attempting to say (though I've heard plenty of people go on and on about their theories)....

What started out as something I believed to be a minor experience exploded into a full on thing, which tends to happen when I latch on to a new passion.  And it's not that putting a record collection together is a new thing for me; I sold (most of) my entire collection of nearly 5,000 records back in 2009 in order to move to San Francisco for grad school. And I gotta tell ya, that was the dumbest thing I ever did. Not because of how much some of those records are worth now, but because of how much it would cost me to put some of those records back into my collection. Some of my favorite albums (particularly those by the People Under the Stairs and Massive Attack's "100th Window") are now very nearly cost-prohibitive as to be almost unattainable.  So I've started over. Not quite from scratch as I kept about 50 or 60 records back; the important ones I didn't want to part with for one reason or another. But my approach to buying is different than it us...

Back in the early 2000's, I began a love affair with vinyl and DJing and turntables and gigs in dark, nasty venues and big, loud clubs. And I enjoyed the hell out of it, collecting over 5,000 records during my 9 years pre-San Francisco doing it. It took me several weeks to get rid of all of my records before moving to the west coast, and it's a decision I still regret today. Not so much because of the financial value of the records, but instead for their sentimental value and their playability. Because of the hours I spent looking for those records, both online and in person at record stores that no longer exist here in Kansas City. And it's weird to think all four of those places are gone now, having been replaced by newer upstarts and used bookstore bins. And this past weekend, I went record shopping with my friend Shannon. I kept a few records from my old collection - some original Miles Davis, some old punk records, some picture discs that go for entirely too ...