Tip of the Quill: A Journal

Category Archives: Music

On Literature and Comparative Media Studies.

(Note: I should preface this bit of writing with a warning: what follows is a first attempt to set down some things I’ve been struggling to articulate for the past couple of years. As such, it may be slightly less than ideally coherent, but hopefully out of it some clarity will emerge.) What is literature? […]

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Hear This Now: The Winterpills.

Courtesy of the lovely Small Beer Press newsblog comes my discovery of a new favorite group. Ever heard of the Winterpills? No? Then get thyself over to their official site or their Virb.com page and give their stuff a listen. Close harmonies, beautifully wistful and poetic lyrics (as SBP notes, yes, “You were born immortal […]

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Radiohead’s IN RAINBOWS: by the Numbers

Here’s some juicy news concerning last year’s “pay what you want” experiment from Radiohead: according to Rolling Stone and musically.com, Radiohead’s publisher Warner Chappell confirmed yesterday that “Radiohead made more money before In Rainbows was physically released than they made in total on the previous album Hail To the Thief“.

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Music, cultural theorists and the late work of Groucho Marx.

Ken, this one’s for you, coming courtesy of a link in Journalista! and WFMU’s Beware of the Blog. In 1969, ABC had a musical variety TV show called Music Scene. When the show ended, they got a very special co-host: the 79-year-old Groucho Marx. Sporting an absolutely amazing hat straight from an MIT graduation, he […]

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A pricey summer for culture vultures.

First it was the buy-one-get-one-free sale on Criterion Collection DVDs at DeepDiscount (which concluded as of midnight last night, thank God), but now Apple has launched a $6.99 and $7.99 sale on Classical and Jazz albums. My wallet! My poor, innocent, empty wallet! I mean, seriously – Hilary Hahn! Yo-Yo Ma and Ennio Morricone! Joshua […]

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New free Counting Crows tunes!

I was feeling kind of down today for some inexplicable reason, but then I found this: a free Digital 45 from Adam Duritz and company. There’s two songs, “1492” and “When I Dream of Michelangelo” (which, I believe, is actually a line from “Angels of the Silences” way back on their second album). I’m listening […]

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The flop of L’Enfant Plaza.

Courtesy of my old brother Nick, the must-read piece of the year: Pearls Before Breakfast in the Washington Post. Go. Read it all. Now. It’s worth it.

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Vienna Teng.

Wow. Wow. Courtesy of my friend Adam, check out songstress Vienna Teng, who has a beautiful Tori Amos vibe – only with plain-language lyrics. Wow. Wow.

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On Josh Woodward.

So the music of Josh Woodward is amazing, and he’s a fellow Ohio boy! Tons of great free MP3s, so go grab some now. (Thanks go out to the ever-lovin’ father of acoustic cool, Mr. Walkingbird himself – this is going to be my work soundtrack for the rest of the week.)

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Coming Late to the Party: The Postal Service.

So my coolhunting in music usually goes like this: I’ll pick up on references to a band that show up in other media in context with someone or something that I already like. Lately, the electronipop group The Postal Service has been popping up all over the periphery of my radar, and when the inestimable […]

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