Celebrity Skin Courtney Love?

I'm bummed about the same thing. They're coming to The Fillmore in SF which isn't that far for me, but I have to be in Florida then. No doubt they'll both be back around soon enough though. How is Madison as a tour stop? Do most artists book dates there, or is it like my town (Sacramento), which is passed on by most…

Ooh, they sound good. I appreciate the recommendation.

Pretty spot on. And the country artists Grady Smith does recommend for the EW are all really solid (though I haven't heard a few of them; Lindi Ortega was a delightful discovery).

All excellent artists! I’d throw into that list Neko Case’s live album, The Tigers Have Spoken, where she covers some classics, plays some of her older songs, and even includes a track of her great (and in this case Swiftian) banter.

I brought that review up in a comment in the review for Lydia Loveless's latest album. I thought to myself whether I should just let it go and not hold such a silly grudge, especially since Catharine Lewis stopped writing anything else for AV Club shortly after. But I just can not let go of how bad that review is.

I haven't had a listen to this album yet, but soon. I'm seeing them this Friday, though, so that should hold me over until then.

Also, Lydia Loveless looks like a blonde Arya Stark in the photo used for this review.

Mainstream country is indeed often stupid and shallow. But there have always been many great, smart, often transgressive, often affecting country artists neglected by the listening masses. Lately many of them have been breaking through with mainstream success. Think Jason Isbell (whose wife, Amanda Shires, has great…

The sounds Lydia Loveless creates in her albums are exactly the sort of things that first got me to start listening to country music in the early and mid 90s.

When you do, if you have access to a personal automobile, consider driving into the city at night. I love how the bay area presents itself when all you can see are the city lights twinkling and reflecting off the bay. When driving westbound on interstate 80. Seeing SF from across the bay at night, driving in from the…

Purple Rose is one of my top Woody Allen movies too, as well as one of my all-time favorites, hovering around Midnight in Paris, which has a similar conceit (something unreal becomes real). Who hasn't felt like Cecilia sitting in a theater at some point in their lives. She is one of the easiest characters to empathize…

Thanks for that earworm.

I'm with you on the animation style of Rick and Morty. I felt the same way about Bob's Burgers at first. Was not a fan of the animation style at all, and I didn't connect with it in its first few episodes. But I revisited it some time in the middle of the first season and something finally connected, I ended up…

Indeed! And thank you for all the effort you put into posting those. It's nice to follow along with other folks watching or remembering FNL. I didn't watch it when it first aired and only just started watching the series last spring after seeing it featured in Alan Sepinwall's The Revolution Was Televised (I wanted to…

Ah, yes, good point! I failed to connect those two incidents.

Absolutely, but it was pretty humorous that the writers seemed to have just not bothered with him further. The writers often don't bother with thinking of what people might actually do in the contrived little situations the writers put people in. The logical thing, based on who these people are, Carol specifically…

The AV Club's music team doesn't seem to pay a whole lot attention to as much roots/americana/folk/country music as it could (doing a cursory search, AV Club didn't bother to review Kacey Musgraves, Brandy Clark, Valerie June, Holly Williams, and many other artists that all released some of the best albums of 2013),…

It is pretty stupid, but the writers are either fully conscious about how absurd everything about the show is or have accepted it and written to it a few episodes in. It's not great but it's entertaining once the show calibrates, and Vera Farmiga gives one of the most interesting, often highly comical performances on…

On a serious note, I guess I'm a little curious how this show will grapple with the whole steroid issue.