Aw Hell Yeah, Volume 3!
In which we try to get things rolling to combat the tough stuff...
Welcome to 2025! What a mess! I’m not sure what to say other than I have been doing my best not to spend every day doomscrolling, disassociating, and generally spiraling about the state of the world. I’m doing an okay job at that using the following lovely distractions:
This happens so rarely, but I’ve already saved a spot in my Best of 2025 list for a record called into a pretty room by lots of hands. I wrote a bit about it for MGRM last week: “ INTO A PRETTY ROOM is a delightful blend of lo-fi bedroom sound collages and sweet indie rock. It evokes a longing for lazy evenings on back porches under starry skies, days spent curled up in a cozy chair flipping through yellowed pages of old books, and nights dedicated to writing hundreds of words and nothing else.” I recommend listening with your favorite pair of headphones.
I’ve never been a big phone gamer. I’m a simple man who enjoys holding a controller and pushing little clicky buttons. That said, I’ve been spending too much time playing Balatro, a very fun “rogue-like” card game, on my phone most evenings in the last month or so. I’m not that good at it, but that isn’t stopping me from trying to level up multipliers on Two Pair poker hands over and over and over. (It is also on the Switch and PS5, so I have been playing with clicky buttons a bit, too.)
And to keep things moving, here’s a roundup of the rest of what I wrote last month:
They Might Be Giants 1990 classic Flood turned 35 last month, so I wrote about the first time I remember hearing it, my relationship with the band, and some other thoughts for Paste.
The first Bargain Bin for 2025 is a deeply personal story about something that happened while listening to Yo La Tengo’s I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass for the first time. It ends on a cliffhanger, and the rest of the story gets complicated and messy, so I’ll probably tackle that somewhere down the line…
I hope you’re doing your best right now. Remember to tell your friends you love them.
- Jack
