On a break from intergalactic conquest, Ziggy and the Spider With the Platinum Hair actually consume food like normal humans.

Yum.

Levon Helm's funeral recessional (May 2012). Music speaks louder and more succinctly than anything else can.

Think Iggy Pop wrote Real Wild Child? Nope. It's a 50's B-Standard, as shown by this bad-ass version, credited to "Ivan" - that is, Jerry Ivan Allison - the drummer for Crickets.

And yup, that's Buddy Holly on guitar - to my ears, playing his Strat directly into the board, in 1958. That's about 10 years before it was considered an innovative studio trick, like when the Beatles did it on Dear Prudence. Talk about ahead of your time.

We can imagine the debut of the symphony during Beethoven's life, and consider when imagining it that everything was smaller - the performance hall, the symphony, the choir, the stakes. Now compare that to what you are about to witness here: A 10,000-strong amateur mixed choir and professional orchestra (both from Osaka and Sendai) with a beautifully-meshuganeh maestro, Yutaka Sado. Truly breathless.

Thanks to Merlin Mann for posting this.

When I first discovered this piece at the beginning of high school, it was one of those feelings you get when you know you're witnessing something historic, classic, beautiful for all time. Like a new organ you'll have working in your system for the rest of your life.

Every time I hear Rain Song, it's just as magical, amazing, mysterious, other-worldly as the first time I heard it, when I was 14. 

At age 37, now, I've gotten to the point, as a musician, where there's not many songs I can't figure out the music theory behind while I'm listening. Usually, I can sit down and figure out the guitar or whatever pretty quickly for just near anything. Rain Song is one of those that is beyond 'figuring it out' - it's impossible to reproduce the magic.

To me, aside from Abbey Road and a couple other things, his bass playing on What's Going On has got to be the most natural of its time.

This vid is unique and amazing because it pulls out his playing from the mix so you can hear the intricacies.

Gracias to my buddy Nick (the best bass player I've ever played with) for the vid.

This is a huge discovery... a beautiful, insane, sweet, discordant, bombastic sad tune. [exhale] amazing.

It seems like the adopted child of Major Tom, Jeremy, Yoshimi, and God.

This is the Long Winters, beautiful brainchild of John Roderick, with whose podcast with Merlin Mann I am currently obsessed. Mama.

Just listen to the background vocals. Blows me away - it's a sound I've often tried to get on my recordings, and even live with my band. It's like catching a platypus in Wisconsin.