Writing

Sawdust and Whiskey

I can still recall the names of the players from those mid-‘80s Dallas Mavericks teams: Brad Davis, Derek Harper, Rolando Blackman, Mark Aguirre, Detlef Schrempf, Sam Perkins, James Donaldson. They are all right there beneath the surface, each name prompting…Read More

Old 97’s – American Primitive

I reviewed the latest album by the Old 97’s for PopMatters. As I say in the review, these songs are engaged with the larger world in a way I’ve never heard from this band. I tend to brace myself when…Read More

Front Row of the Melt Show

Back before Napster, before YouTube, rarity and scarcity were fundamental markers of fandom. Japanese import singles, live bootlegs, leaked demos — these objects measured the depth of your devotion and length of your pursuit. I’ve got an essay called “Front…Read More

Twenty Seconds Tops

A friend of mine asked me what my walk-up music would be if I was a baseball player. He gave me a set of six rules to consider, the first of which was that I only got twenty seconds of…Read More

The Word “Flow” Has to Go

I’ve got a piece over at Faculty Focus on the metaphor of “flow” that my writing students use while composing. I’m going to go ahead and say that it’s the first entry in their Philosophy of Teaching series to invoke…Read More

33 1/3: The B-sides

I have a chapter in a new collection entitled, The 33 1/3 B-sides: New Essays by 33 1/3 Authors on Beloved and Underrated Albums. From the book’s editors, D. Gilson and Will Stockton: “Simply put, we asked past 33 1/3…Read More

Couch (See Also Cooch)

I began my research hoping to discover that Portland’s esteemed Captain Couch actually pronounced his last name the same as mine, like the sofa. Instead, I learned much more about the Portland history and the Cornish language than I ever…Read More

Winter Wheat

“Songs of struggle and fight rally listeners to action, but beneath those necessary calls to arms there has to be a belief that actions make a difference. ‘Winter Wheat’ is a quiet voice of reassurance when the disagreements die down…Read More

One Little Tip of the Wing

Erik Wofford owns and operates Cacophony Recorders in Austin, Texas and has worked with artists such as the Black Angels, Explosions in the Sky, My Morning Jacket, Bill Callahan, the Octopus Project and Grupo Fantasma. He’s developed an intuitive approach…Read More

The Case Against Conversational Writing

“In I. Asimov: A Memoir, Isaac Asimov compares writing to glass. He notes that stripping color out of glass was ‘the great triumph of Venetian glassmaking art.’ It took until the 17th century to master, and the technique was so…Read More

Sawdust and Whiskey

Old 97’s – American Primitive

Front Row of the Melt Show

Twenty Seconds Tops

The Word “Flow” Has to Go

33 1/3: The B-sides

Couch (See Also Cooch)

Winter Wheat

One Little Tip of the Wing

The Case Against Conversational Writing

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