compared to what

Jim DeRogatis: Do you see a lot of concerts? Go see bands a lot?
Lester Bangs: No. I don’t, you know. I’ve never liked live music that much, to tell you the truth.
—from “A Final Chat with Lester Bangs”
Lester Bangs (1948–1982), the legendary and controversial rock critic, wrote deeply entertaining and affecting prose combining the feel [...]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FImwVKsBfEM&mode=related&search=]
Elvis died on 16 August 1977. The Times has a comprehensive retrospective here with many video links and a reexamination of his career and the potential he did/did not live up to. (Obligatory fried banana sandwich recipe included.)

Nerds, geeks, dorks…traditionally defined as people who are passionate and obsessed about particular subjects to the point of social awkwardness. The Internet facilitates obsession, helps one find a place to belong. Do we even have a need for the n-word in the sense of “socially awkward”? Can one be socially awkward in a world where you [...]

Oliver Sacks, the sooper-dooper famous neurologist—you know, the guy from Awakenings—has written a new book on music and the brain, called Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. It will be published in October.
As you might have guessed from my past posts on this blog, the topic of music and the brain is right up [...]

[Note from the six-degrees-of-separation world of Taylor Hicks: In April 2006, a [wink] Taylor Hicks fan blog quotes Dave Eggers discussing whether The Flaming Lips have “sold out” and what selling out means. This puts The Flaming Lips squarely in the consciousness of any Taylor Hicks fan who bothers to really read the Eggers quote. [...]

Haruki Murakami, the famous Japanese novelist, says he learned to write from music. He started thinking he could get at The Mystery through jazz, but found instead that the music led him to words:
Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All [...]

I subscribe to The Believer, a literary journal founded by Dave Eggers. Eggers is known to I’ve-loved-him-from-day-one Taylor Hicks fans, as He of the “Yes” Quote. If you have have no idea what I’m talking about, read here or here.
The June/July “music” issue of The Believer contains a mix CD. I was excited as I slid [...]

What does science have to say about the endorphin rush I get from listening to Taylor Hicks?
Here’s an embedded YouMind’sEye video on the concept of imprinting: [Start video] We see a little gosling hatching from an egg, its shaky head turns and it sees a mother goose. Gosling imprints on mom, and we see an [...]