Do you want the good news or the bad news? Well, let's go bad, so I can end with the blubbering. To the chase--your review of the Unitas record is maddening--here's why--the music is actually quite good, a mix of REM, Uncle Tupelo and bad emo bands, and gosh duggit, I dig it. But, and here is the rub, I deeply refute the idea that this boy has anything to say. Let's see--whining about his friends, other bands, his hometown, his newspaper, etc. What, god pray, does he offer in the way of a solution? He simply offers up himself as a superior solution without saying anything about what that means. Ok, so drinking and smoking is bad. What does he offer in its place? Excuse the bad pun, but he's just another whine merchant. Everything sucks, but... Well, at least the music is good.

In other news, your story is scarily similar to my own, which half pisses off my pathetic sense of individuality but half restores my faith in the human race. To make a long story shorter, the holy trinity part, which I would have changed to include Dinosaur Jr. rather than the minute boys, a minor point, mirrored so closely my own that I had to check the url to make sure i wasn't reading an old journal. You are obviously an older gentleman, and so, sadly, am I. It's always interesting to hear what the hell happened to our particular generation. While i'm not crazily down with some of your record pics, it's nice to know that there are bastards like you out there, not just changing diapers, keeping it all alive and bringing that 20 years or so of listening experience to the game.

While I go to change another diaper, please know that there are other bastards out here enjoying your shit and relying on it for new info on sounds and hoping to maybe, just maybe, get turned on to some record that might, among all the ho hum discs, change a moment.

Amen, my brother, amen, and Hallelujah! May God bless and keep you close! I just started working on my church "THE HOLY CHURCH of ROCK and ROLL", I did a web search and there you are!!

Great minds think alike. Smoke the weed that grew on Moses's grave! When I get my site up, I'll let you know and by the grace of God, we maybe can share some ideas. Peace for now. Spark it.

Thanks for the review. Obviously, when pursuing any endeavor in writing, music, arts, etc., a sense of humor is necessary in order to survive. So my book wasn't yer bag. At least you call 'em like you see 'em and for that I say "Kudos." It's true, I'm just a regular guy with some dirty stories (I'm reluctant to call them "confessional" because that would require a sense of guilt). Truth be known, to be lumped in with Buk and Johnson is fine with me. Welsh, with all his mucky muck Brit shit can eat a bag of dicks because he

plays the word with audience in mind. What better way to shock 'em than to one up the degradation of "Trainspotting" with "Filth"? That'll get 'em! While I do enjoy some of his work, I find myself being played, not drawn in by it. TS Elliot?? Talk about the "Look at me, I'm a writer! " thing. For what its worth, may I recommend Harry Crews or Nick Tosches? Or even Dorothy Allison?

Like you yourself admit, sometimes we feel compelled to write these things down. So unlike you I actually ran it up the flagpole. You didn't salute. Am I hurt, embarrassed? Hell, no !!! If everyone liked my writing, I'd know that I was doing something wrong. Unlike Rock n Roll, I can't hang so called failures on lazy bandmates, trends or "those idiots in the biz." I stand by my work, for better or worse. Its my hope, that someday, I'll be able to look back at "Hangover Palaces" as a necessary step toward a greater accomplishment. Hell, Miller (you probably hate him too) wrote and abandoned "Tropic of Cancer" three times before he got it right.

So as I barrel headlong down the writing trail with blinders on and farts in the wind behind me, I smile and thank you for your words. I never fault a man for telling the truth as he may see it. It's now hanging with my collection of rejection letters and angry mail.

It's true. Brits suck. What can you say about a race of people four and a half feet tall with bad teeth who live off scrotem & esophagus pie and fish 'n' chips wrapped in last week's Rupert Murdoch by-product? Fuck 'em. (Altho I like their Guinness real much.)

Re: Welsh, having slithered like a wet turd through the NY public education system at a time (the early seventies) when the educational flavor o' the month called "Relevance" relieved me from having to endure Beowulf and Chaucer (which I now regret), I find it amusing to read an author 50% of whose work is rendered in incomprehensible dialect. (Kinda like the time I tried reading "Ulysses" on acid...but I digress.)

Tosches is, I think, the greatest living American writer. His "Trinities" gives me shivers just thinking about it. And he made a record with Homer Henderson, whom I had the privilege of playing on a bill with a coupla yrs ago (Xmas benefit for the local food bank at some local blues dump), at which time he looked more like one of the Undead than anyone I've ever seen onstage in a dive. Crews and Allison I'm unfamiliar with. Will have to check 'em out.

Miller: Hadn't thought about ol' Hank in several millennia, but for some reason remember "Tropic of Cancer" with some fondness, almost as much as I hold for the copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" I purloined from my old man's bookshelf when I flew the parental coop, uh, 20+ years ago and only recently sold to Half Price Books for beer 'n' burger buxxx. That said, I think Miller's life is prolly more interesting than his work, in the same was as Kerouac's was.

If indeed you have my screed taped to the fridge w/yr rejection letters and hate mail, bless you. It's a never-ending source of amazement to me how with all the electronic media bombarding us, the Romance of the Artifact (papyrus) still seems to be deep in the race. May it always be so.

Easily, hands down of the best articulated reviews of Love and Theft, if not the most fun and insightful. Third time I listened to the record, I had tears in my eyes just liked when I first heard the harmonica at the end of "Trying to Get to Heaven". Though there are dark clouds everywhere, we have to feel privileged to be alive in the the same age of an artist such as this. I mean.....just look at and think about the body of work. Again, thanks. What a pleasure it was to read.

Thanks very much for the well-written, honest review of all of our recent slop of rock & roll. It's so refreshing in this day and age of "serious" rock writings to see someone who writes from the heart and still feels the music. I really enjoy your page--keep up the good work, and that would be killer if one day if ya could get the funds for a print version. But no matter what, ya gotta love the on-line revolution for all us poor, hopeful, lovers of the true spirit and flame of rock & roll!

Personally, I prefer Satellite Rides over Fight Songs. Actually, Fight Songs is far and away my least favorite, but a lot of that has to do with the under-the-hood

Respect & thanks for the words you found for Joey. I swear it brought tears to my eyes. And although I'm one of those atheists you mention: God bless you, man. I know it makes sense to you.

I just stumbled across your website. Hallelujah! If ever there was a church worth being a member of.... this is it. Do you publish a print version? Anyway, it is a very cool site. I was wondering if I could get your mailing address so that I could send you a new CD that we just put out? I saw the review you did on our first release - The BellRays' Grand Fury.