Collaborations

What I've been up to lately

In my 2025 year-in-review post I mentioned that I enjoy feeling like part of a community of music writers, and the opportunities to share or work with other people. I’ve been lucky to be doing more of that.

It’s been a good Spring

At the end of April I wrote a post for Andres “Vital Records” series highlighting three live albums I hold dear — Enduring Takes.¹ A number of great writers have contributed to the series; I was honored to be part of it, and really enjoyed the discussion and feedback, with several people talking about their own favorite live albums, and interest in the records I’d selected.

This last week I had a lot of fun contributing to Emm as in Music’s five-for-Friday series; trying to find songs that would be new to her or, at least, unfamiliar enough that they would benefit from a fresh listen. It ended up being a nice opportunity to discuss music, and follow interesting themes. As I described it we ended up with, “songs that cover regret, desire, why you shouldn't trust Cupid, but should enjoy your vices.”

Also, I have an upcoming Tune Tag with Brad Kyle which will drop in two and a half weeks. I’m very excited to share that, and also a little nervous. As a long time fan and reader to Tune Tag I have a sense of what tends to play well in the format and . . . that’s not exactly what we did. In my opinion it’s delightfully exploratory, but that means it sometimes ranges far afield. I would be very happy if it sparked some interesting conversation, so I encourage all of my readers to keep it in mind. In fact, let me formally invite all of you . . .

Please Join us for Tune Tag #147 on June 2nd

Tune Tag is sometimes framed as a competition, like chess or tennis. I would suggest a different metaphor for this week

Imagine that Brad and I have constructed a path for the reader to explore. Standing at the trailhead, it appears to disappear into the woods, but if you join us for a stroll you’ll find out that it offers some lovely views.

The trail loops through a meadow, into the woods, where it opens up at a hidden waterfall. It then follows the river downstream. Just at the point at which it may feel like you’ve been walking for a while, and are starting to lose track of landmarks, it takes one last turn and emerges, surprisingly, close enough to the starting point that you can see where the cars are parked at the beginning

A Tune Tag episode is comprised of eight songs; for that week you can make the argument that no two of them are in the same genre . . .

Closing with some musical recommendations. In the spirit of the post, one of my most enjoyable musical discoveries of the year was finding out that Chrissie Hynde recently released an album of duets, covering classic songs with a range of collaborators. They’re fun, and it gave me a different appreciation for her as a singer. Her work with the Pretenders is fantastic and offers pure Rock-and-Roll swagger and energy. It’s fun to hear how well she does in different moods and genres. Two of my favorites are:

“My & Mrs Jones” (with k.d. lang)

“Can’t Help Falling In Love” (with Mark Lanegan)

I also just discovered that, several years ago, she contributed an excellent track to a Caetano Veloso tribute album.

The Empty Boat

Fantastic!

Work is likely to be busy for the next few months, so I will be posting less frequently, but I’m very glad to feel like part of a community and have chances like these to work with friends on this platform.

1. Apologies to my readers for not highlighting that earlier. When it was posted I saw that many of my regular readers were also subscribers to Andres, and read it there, and I didn’t want to send people duplicate e-mails, but I should have mentioned it in a previous post. Andres, would you be willing to bring that out of the paywall for a couple of days?