It all changed July 14.
When Spotify expanded its service to the United States earlier this year, the streaming platform altered and improved the way I consume and find music — hopefully forever. No more forking over $9.99 per digital album on iTunes. No more sifting through shady sites in search of a decent free version of the week’s biggest release.
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Writer and Story: Chris Ballard, SI, “The Kiss”
These days, with the oversaturation of sharing devices and linking and instant connectivity, it can be hard to keep pace with the non-stop reading recommendations. To be sure, I’d prefer an onslaught of reading material to none… it’s just… I only got so much time, brother.
And how many times do you stumble upon a link on some pocket of the internet and hear: “Best thing you’ll read all day” or “Must-read” or “Great read” or “So well-written” or some other generically boring review*. Continue reading
Being home for the Holidays, at least during the daytime at my house, generally presents two options for entertainment: watching Lifetime Original movies with my sister (A Nanny For Christmas) or counting how many individual dog hairs canvass the leather furniture of our family room. I got lucky on Friday, though. My sister, Rachel, who has recently moved back to the United States from Denmark, is in need of a car so that she may start working again in hopes of inflating her bank account, which has a cash flow problem that rivals the country of Greece. Continue reading
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
Many a soul reserve a particularly contemptible place in their heart for “The Christmas Shoes.” I suspect some may even call it the worst Christmas song ever, worse than even “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” or “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” I say this because Jezebel held a contest for readers to decided the worst Christmas song ever, and it won, beating out, in the semifinal and then final, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.” Continue reading
I see the way they look at me and mumble a meek “Hi” as I duck into my renovated apartment in the building we share.
After all, they were here first. They lived through the days of glass-enclosed cashiers, barren after-dark avenues and the crime that made New York notorious. My Brooklyn — its craft beer bars, wine shops and organic groceries — isn’t their Brooklyn.
About three months ago, on a clear and cool night in early September, I made the short trip to Midtown to watch Bon Iver play at the Uptown Theatre. (That makes sense if you live in KC.)
On most nights, this would seem like a pretty simple plan.
Drive to said show. Sip a beer and act sufficiently curious during the opening act. Experience the concert. And then head back out into the Kansas City night, content, inspired, ready for more music.
The circumstances of this night, however, were something different. After planning for a couple weeks to go with two friends, life interfered in the days leading up to the show, and I was left with two extra tickets.
The Uptown was sold out that night, and I knew this. So I knew it wouldn’t be a problem to unload the extra tickets at the last minute, but I also felt a little hesitant about going to the show by myself.
Do people do this? I thought.
Because sometimes you just want friends to tell you about cool things… the Brew House team offers up its weekly mix of author-supported goodness.
This soccer-centric documentary debuted at the SXSW Film Festival in 2010, and it immediately struck a chord. Pelada, which literally translates to “naked” in Portuguese, is the Brazilian word for pickup soccer (or more correctly, futbol).
It’s the work of four young film-makers and stars Luke Boughen and Gwendolyn Oxenham, two former college soccer standouts who travel the world in a constant search for the most basic form of the game — and what it means to each place. This week, more than a year after it surfaced on my radar, I was finally able to cross it off my list. (It’s streaming on Netflix.)
On the surface, this is essentially a love letter to the beautiful game, but the film resonated with me on two deeper levels: It opens a window into life in the unseen (the slums of Buenos Aires; a prison yard in La Paz, Bolivia; the tension-filled streets of Jerusalem), capturing the struggles and monotony of day-to-day life through the lens of futbol.
GoMusicNow.com is a music website that offers full albums for about two dollars and songs for about 15 cents. It is heaven, and it is likely (HAS TO BE) illegal. And I think it is based out of Russia.
One day in the not too distant future I will almost certainly take three steps out of my apartment and then three KGB agents will grab my arms and legs and cover my mouth with a chloroform rag before transporting me to a secret underground missile silo that doubles as a gulag for punk Americans who think they can cheat the music industry. I know this. Their names will be Dmitri, Boris (pronounced bo-REEEES) and Vladimir. I wait attentively like a minuteman for this regrettable day. Until then, GoMusicNow.com is worth it.
My company relocated recently from the stately silver canyons of Sixth Avenue to the pulsating, luminous walls of Times Square. This two-block shift might not seem like a big deal, but as any resident of the five boroughs knows, it is, indeed a very big deal.
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