State of the Blog 2025

At the risk of overdisclosure, let me share some of my anxieties as they specifically relate to this blog. When I first started the project, I intended to have a daily post on every record in my collection, in alphabetical order. When I buy something earlier in the alphabet than I’ve already reviewed though, I have to review that first before moving on.

Problem is: I buy a lot of records, and I have a busy life. I have a stack of records in my To-Review queue that has fluctuated between ten to thirty records that I need to get to before I can continue through the alphabet (I’ve been stuck on the edge of Neil Young for like six years. Add a global pandemic to sap my energy and massively increase pressing volumes, and it can feel like an impossible weight to get out from under.

But as I’ve realized, that pressure is entirely self made. And where I was once utilizing this blog as a sort of soft portfolio as I worked as a full-time content writer, I’m not writing professionally anymore. The only person relying on me to do this is me, and I’ve made my bar way too high.

So while I may have said this a dozen times in the last few years, I’m lowering my standards for myself. Posting anything will be better than meaning to post insightful and well-written reviews and posting nothing. After all, the music is more important than my driveling on about it.

Let’s go.

There Has Been a Delay

I can hear you now. “Hey, I thought this blog got updated daily. What gives?”

Or, “hello,” as people used to say. But yes. It’s been a while since my last post. My wife and I were taking a shirt vacaion last weekend to visit family, but during that trip I got an email from my boss in Florida offering to fly me down to meet Ric Flair, who is a client of ours.

I didn’t hesitate. But, that weekend away turned into a whole week away pretty quickly, and when you’re dealing with a blog chronicling a vinyl collection, it gets hard to take the show on the road.

So the blog’s been quiet, but my life has not been. And neither have my headphones. I used all of my travel time as an opportunity to dive into a bunch of different bands that I had previously overlooked. And, there’s a great record store in St. Pete’s where I acquired a bt of a backlog that I need to go through now.

In the meantime, here’s me and Ric Flair.

Also, I’ve been thinking for a while about starting a podcast to talk about my favorite records with friends, and the more I talk about, the more serious I get about it. Now, I’m brainstorming show formats, researching licensing laws, and putting together a list of records and guests, so I guess you could say things are getting pretty serious  (yes, that was a Napoleon Dynamite quote).

But now, I’m back home, and ready to spin some records. Regular posts will resume shortly.

Record #285: The Foxery – Unless (2014)

Record #285: The Foxery - Unless (2014)
About nine years ago, a Pedro the Lion fanatic named Calvin added me on MySpace because I looked a little like Aaron Weiss from mewithoutYou (this is true). We became friends through many an AIM chat (nine...

 

About nine years ago, a Pedro the Lion fanatic named Calvin added me on MySpace because I looked a little like Aaron Weiss from mewithoutYou (this is true). We became friends through many an AIM chat (nine years ago, remember?) where we discovered that we were both songwriters with a penchant for emo-tinged acoustic music. I was striking out on a solo project after the dissolution of my high school post-hardcore band, he had just started playing Bazan-esque tunes under the name The Foxery. Over time, the Foxery added members and influences until this year when they got signed to Spartan Records and released the emo record of the year, which is no small task in the year that brought the emo revival no one knew we needed.

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