I partially blame Christopher Carrabba (aka Dashboard Confessional). He had a large hand in starting the whole thing that has since become entirely too common and even predictable in so much of the new music that’s coming out these days, especially among the scene crowd. Nine out of ten demos I receive have it. The […]

I took a road trip to south Florida to check out some bands this week. I travel quite often to see bands, sometimes it’s worth it sometimes it’s not. This time was worth it. I got to see a band that I’m loosely affiliated with through the Manchester Orchestra camp. They’re called All Get Out, […]

I recently asked a group of people who I knew to be true music fans what they thought the next wave of music will be. In other words, what style of music will unseat the current crop of pop music that is selling like gangbusters? Everyone answered exactly the same; they said it’s the one […]

I’m often asked what the process of signing a band looks like, or more to the point, how exactly a band goes from getting the attention of someone that does what I do, to actually inking a deal. Contrary to popular belief, A&R people don’t walk around with contracts in their back pocket ready to […]

I spent the weekend in Nashville attending the Next Big Nashville Music Conference. I saw several great bands from that fine city, but the two that stood out the most were from here in Atlanta. It’s always good to see a band from my town playing in another city because there’s a much different energy […]

There’s an episode in season three of the legendary 1980’s TV show Cheers called “The Executive’s Executioner” in which the character Norm gets a new position at his accounting firm that entails him being the person who does all the firing. During his first few attempts at firing the people to whom he was assigned, you […]

As I sat to write this blog I was approached by a friend who asked me the question that I was going to write about in the first place. I get asked it all the time, probably once a day. I’m flying to Boston tomorrow to sit on a panel at the Boston Music Conference, […]

The recent, well-deserved signing of Atlanta’s The Constellations to Virgin records made me think about the Atlanta music scene. On a national and international level, Atlanta is known best for its thriving hip-hop scene, and what an incredible scene it is. Within a two mile radius of my house there are a plethora of world-class […]

I got an advance of Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 album recently. It’s actually pretty solid throughout, but that’s not what this is about. The album has fifteen tracks on it, and like I said, it’s pretty solid but it seems to me that fifteen tracks on any album is too long these days. Jay-Z can […]

I just spent the last week on tour in England with a band I work very closely with, Manchester Orchestra. This is a band that regularly spends two hundred to two hundred fifty days a year on the road, so comparatively what I did was nothing, but it was enough to get a peek into the lives […]

I spent almost nine years of my life working for 99X radio here in Atlanta. It was a great gig. The majority of that time was spent as music director (MD) for the station, which means that I, along with the program director (PD) would, among other things, choose which songs made it to the air, […]

We’ve established the difference between music junkies and passive music fans. If you want to brush up click here to see part 1. What I want to establish this week is the reason behind one song’s success over another. Why do bands like Nickelback continue to have multiple chart topping songs album after album. Surely […]

It’s safe to say that one of my least favorite bands of all time is Nickelback. I can honestly say there is nothing I like about them. Not one single thing. Nothing. But here’s the problem. Nickelback has sold over thirty million albums over the past several years. Let me repeat that because I don’t […]

In gearing up to hit the road for a bit, I went to see several unsigned bands in Atlanta this past week. Some new, and some that have been around for a while (maybe too long?). It’s the latter of those two groups that have been on my mind lately. I’ve been thinking about bands who slug […]

I spent the week at home in Atlanta re-building a fence in my front yard that was recently crushed by a 150 year-old oak tree. Thankfully, as far as my property is concerned it was just the fence that was ruined. My neighbor, as well as my neighbor’s neighbor on the other hand, had major […]