One of my best friends, the poet Steven Rineer, who introduced me to (not an exhaustive list) The Band, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Van Morrison, Brian Eno, and Fleetwood Mac, has just had his brilliant piece about Van's song And It Stoned Me published in Orange Peel Magazine. Read it! It's fantastic! I don't say this lightly.
Speaking of great music writing online (which, in my experience, can be depressingly and discouragingly hard to find), for those into Bob Dylan, there's Tim Edgeworth's Talkin' Bob Dylan, full of well-written, lovingly researched takes on unusual topics.
While I'm at it, here are two more essays that have recently impressed me. One is about Van's work in the 1980s, or really about all the music he has made since his time as a critics' darling ended, with particular attention paid to No Guru, No Method, No Teacher: Steven Hyden's The Pettiest Musical Genius of Our Time. Second, Ryan Leas' heartfelt and eloquent reckoning with his long-time favorite Bruce Springsteen, over on Stereogum: Bruce Springsteen Albums from Worst to Best.
For my own part, there may yet be more about Anomalous Events. I have a new big writing project in the works, though one that may not be of interest to many except (Inshallah) an older Sigismund looking back on his writings of more youthful days... youthful? You're already 32! And unlikely to make it past 60! Hurry up with all the masterpiece albums you keep telling yourself you can make... really, though, the songs I write nowadays are a lot better than those I was writing ten years ago. If I'm dedicated enough, and if the pattern holds, and if God grants me years enough, there should be some pretty amazing stuff flowing out from under Sigismund Sludig's pen when he is 40, or 50, or on death's doorstep at 60. It's good to be an artist. There's no point retiring. The best stuff is always ahead.
Such as Jethro Tull's The Zealot Gene! Out this Friday, and shaping up to be one of Ian Anderson's best albums ever! And this from someone who's made nothing but fantastic albums since at least 1991. Ian hasn't been terrifically prolific, but he's made every album count. What a sequence: Catfish Rising --> Roots to Branches --> J-Tull Dot Com -->The Secret Language of Birds --> Rupi's Dance --> Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? --> Homo Erraticus --> The Zealot Gene. Unreal. I love the classic Tull years, but you won't find an unbroken run of seven (or, presumably, eight) comparably amazing albums back there.
Although, come to think of it, Stand Up to Minstrel in the Gallery is seven albums too. So is Songs from the Wood to Under Wraps... hmmm...
Enough rambling. I've got to get back to caring for our nearly three-month-old firstborn. And you reading this, quit wasting your time, and go read Steven on Van!
