1.  CONFESSION TIME. I will not be as good a comic-book blogger anymore.  Economics require that I stop buying as many single-issue books.  Therefore, I’ll be focusing on the “trades,” paperback collections of single issues that tend to come out 3-5 months after the last issue contained in the collection.  That means I won’t be [...]

So Valentiger‘s “Power Lines to Electric Times” is actually a 2009 release, but I’m just now getting my ears on it.  At first listen, I thought, “Eh.  A little Byrne, a little Neil Young, it’s pretty standard indie.”  But as I moved through the record, I heard a vulnerability and rawness that went beneath the [...]

Hey Ya-Razorlight . . . Nah, screw that.  Everyone covers Hey Ya . . . Roses-Twilight Singers Bombs Over Bagdad-Rage Against the Machine So Fresh, So Clean-The Vines Get all 4 covers plus a bonus mash up of Outkast (maybe the best rap duo ever) versus Will Smith (clearly not one of the best rappers [...]

I’ve been posting quite a few decent mixtapes these days, but most are about half-good, half-filler.  Few rate their own post.  Chicago’s Mikkey’s is an exception.  Some of these are re-releases–call them the best of Mikkey, for those who’ve never heard him before–and many are new, with production by all the best: Kanye West, Ca$h [...]