As is tradition, here is a distillation of my favorite media—formatted into digestable bulleted lists for posterity.
For the last decade or so, I've been a staunch proponent of music playback by album. Recently, I've found a deep appreciation for playlist building.
I’m sort of a nut about metadata and archiving my digital stuff. I also like lists and enjoy listening to music. It’s all of those things that led me to my ongoing bi-monthly playlist project, where I collect...
My lists are all short this year and I have a long holiday break to enjoy, so I’m going to combine this year’s My Favorite Things posts into one. I hope that’s cool. MusicI gave fewer releases...
Old Best Friend has a new record coming out in February of this new year. The lead single from that record is called “Anna” and it premiered yesterday on Chorus.fm. Old Best Friend · AnnaMike put together a nice little...
Perhaps the only event bigger than Christmas worth celebrating this year is the release of The 1975's latest album A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, which dropped on Friday. I've been enjoying the album a lot. So much so that...
via Modern Vinyl: Part 5 of our Revisiting The Beatles series dives into Help!, their August 1965 release. We discuss how the band’s rising fame seeps into their songwriting, Chris gets a crash course on “Paul is Dead,” and...
A new podcasting publisher has popped up called Engle and their first show is a hit. The Undersiders is a series about the intersections between the burgeoning hip-hop movement and the sale of drugs at mass. The show is produced...
via Modern Vinyl: Episode 205 of The Modern Vinyl Podcast takes on The Weeknd’s new release (NOT EP), “My Dear Melancholy,.” Chris and Mike, along with special guest Jacob Tender (Bantha Fodder), discuss where the EP belongs in the...
In a new EP titled Universal Love, six classic love songs have been reimagined to be more inclusive. As marriage has become more inclusive, it seems like it’s time the music we use to celebrate it caught up. That’...
Jason at Chorus.fm noticed today that PureVolume will be shutting down at the end of the month. According to a pop-up on the site's homepage, folks with songs hosted there "will have until April 30th, 2018 to download" them....
There's plenty of great music out this weekend. Here's what I'd recommend: The Weeknd - My Dear Melencholy The Weeknd dropped a new EP tonight. The biggest surprise wasn't 6 new tracks with just two days notice, but the throwback...
Jon Plester at McSweeney's: Option 1 Denounce their entire catalog. Declare them corporate shills, forever dead in your eyes. Option 2 Continue to listen to them, but only their self-released albums from before they signed to that major label. Whenever...
Variable Bitrate has been on a hiatus for the past year, which has taken some of the pressure off of listening to new music, which naturally means I listen to more new music. LPs Vultures - Dead LeavesMental Illness -...
In 2013 A friend introduced me to Old Best Friends’s ‘Keep In Touch,’ an EP that changed my world. Over the next year Mike Comite and I became friends. In 2015, we started a podcast called Bantha Fodder. We’...
The Modern Vinyl guys invited me on to talk about Rolling Stone's pop-punk list. I defend AFI. Good times are had. via Modern Vinyl: On the newest episode of The Modern Vinyl Podcast, the hosts debate and dissect Rolling Stone’...
Mansions is/are back, baby. New tunes coming, one of which is streaming at the link. via Brooklyn Vegan: We’re premiering the EP’s first single, “Heel Theme.” which does have a noticeable electronic influence, but they haven’t...
Deanna and I talk about our storage solutions and workflows, backup options, and related media management. via Welcome To Geekdom: Jacob Tender returns to the podcast for an extremely geeky chat about digital storage and backing up data.Find the...
Following my undocumented, RARE project and the Master List, I joined Deanna Chapman once again to give an idiot's lecture on Frank Ocean. via Welcome To Geekdom: Jacob Tender returns to talk about Frank Ocean's early career, his discography, and...
UPDATE: The mixtape has been updated and is now hosted at blonded.blog. Over the years, I've amassed an extensive collection of Lonny Breaux reference tracks and Frank Ocean rarities. In doing do, I've had plenty of help through existing...
I'm back again on Welcome To Geekdom to talk about Apple Music, the streaming service I use to access the rarites and unstreamables that were formally found only on my external hard drive. I've been playing around in the Apple...
James and I recorded an episode of Variable Bitrate together in Chicago. Unfortunately, it was shit. Time constraints and the weariness of walking and talking for 3 hours around Navy Pier didn't allow us to do the thing justice. I...
Despite hosting a podcast revolving almost entirely around movers and shakers in the alternative music industry, I’ve listened to very little new music this year. Of that, an even smaller percentage has stuck. The result is a shorter list...
John Mayer has been teasing his return to pop music for some time, most notably through his Instagram.[1] Of late, he’s been touring with The Grateful Dead as a member of their band. It’s a bit of...
As mentioned previously, my Bantha Fodder cohost Mike Comite and I love audio production. I'd say that our podcast is about 75% about the Star Wars universe and the remaining bit is about trying new things with our format, mixes,...
My friend Dan Cox and I have followed an eerily similar trail since 2010. We get deep into the weeds of early 2010 leak blogs, music blogs, and Internet social justice. Dan is genuinely a fan of my show and...
Danny is the NICEST guy! He's also well traveled, committed, and hardworking. Ladies? Danny Samet has toured with bands like Say Anything, Two Door Cinema Club, Motion City Soundtrack, Thrice, The Academy Is, and so many more. In just 5...
This has been a long time coming. Ben and I met at my dad's place where he and the rest of the guys on his tour stayed the night before taking me on the road with them. We didn't get...
When I attended Hocking College for music industry management and production, my classmates and I worked collaboratively on a project that encompassed all of the skills taught to us over the past two years. Together, we booked a number of...
Johnny Minardi is something of a legend in the alternative scene. He launched the careers of some scene favorites and aided in the release of countless more. He has scores of stories regarding the glory days of Fueled By Ramen...
It took a while, but I finally got Gunz on the show. After a few weeks of rain delays and train crashes, the Idobi posterboy gives us the dish on his career in broadcast journalism. Mike Gunzelman aka Gunz is...
I almost took a job at AltPress out of high school, there have been times I regretted going a different route, but knowing what I know now, I'm glad I didn't make the move to Cleveland. I love Alternative Press....
Just when I think the podcast is becoming easier to produce on a weekly basis, it isn't. In actuality, this episode was very easy to produce. It has the shortest run time, has one of the best speakers I've interviewed...
Nate Sirotta of Impulse Artists sat down with me this week to share some great tips surrounding PR. Whether you're in a band, write for a blog, or have an interest in doing publicity yourself, this is a great episode....
Ian and I have been in contact since 2012 when his band States Away wanted to premiere their album on my music blog. Since then, I've been lucky to have Ian as a sounding board for my design ideas. He's...