Julie Slick
A: Remarkable sensory experiences are like time travel, and for that reason I hold a very special place in my heart for Massive Attack’s Heligoland. I first heard its single “Paradise Circus” at Andrea Pellegrini’s mastering studio outside of Florence, Italy, during my first year as a nomad. I fell in love instantly.
Current obsession: Emma Ruth Rundle. I met her during one of those nomad years on an excursion to L.A. We became friends before I’d even listened to her music, which is probably a good thing because I totally would have fan-girled out over her incredible art, which is inspiring, impassioned, and pure.
Photo by Allan Wan
Luke Ottenhof - Assistant Editor
A: Frightened Rabbit blew the doors off of indie rock for me. Their most popular work is folksy, anthemic indie rock, but the imagination in composition, and especially in Grant Hutchison’s percussion and timing, really made me reconsider what a great song could consist of, and how far outside the lines you could color while still producing a sing-along, dance-along alternative-rock record. I’d love to experience that realization of possibility again.
Current obsession: I’ve been learning about the labor organizing efforts of music workers through the past century, in particular the massive AFM strikes of the 1940s, when musicians fought back against labels hoarding the profits from the latest technology: recordings. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Connor Wade - Digital Experience Manager
A: I wish I could experience Annie DiRusso’s music again for the first time. After a chance introduction scrolling TikTok, her grungy indie-pop tracks have consumed my life. Songs like “Don’t Swerve” helped me through the pandemic, and I’m excited to see what this Nashville-based songwriter does next.
Current obsession: I’ve been digging up some of my favorite songs from Arctic Monkeys after hearing about a friend’s recent experience seeing them live. This obsession is very nostalgia-fueled, as their first full-length came out during my high school years, but it’s been inspiring to realize how much they unconsciously influenced my playing.
Dan Hanson - Reader of the Month
A: Mountain. Leslie West’s guitar sound reverberates with me to this day! A Les Paul Jr. with a P-90 pickup through a Sunn PA amplifier! His fat tone, sustain, and vibrato were shockingly perfect! His delicate volume-swell ‘violin’ sections in his solo “Dream Sequence” were indeed dreamlike!
Photo by Frank Schwichtenberg
Current obsession: The 1962 duet album Undercurrent with Jim Hall (guitar) and pianist Bill Evans: I’m not a jazz-musician by any stretch...but their instinctive, intricate musical conversations gently force you to just listen and absorb the beauty of the music and not think about how they’re doing it.
Q: Have you ever met one of your guitar heroes? How did it go?
Emily Kokal — Warpaint
Photo by Robin Laananen
A: Yes—John Frusciante. It went great; we ended up living together for three years.
Emily Kokal's Current Obsession
Huerco S. and all things old and new ambient. Suzanne Ciani, Eno, Jon Hopkins, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Tony Scott. I listened to the Huerco S. album For Those of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have) constantly before writing our new album. I don’t know if it had any direct effect on the album itself, but my favorite song on the record is called “Promises of Fertility,” and it did have a direct effect there, I think, because I’ve since had a child.
Howard Van Ackooy — Reader of the Month
A: I met Roger McGuinn back when the Byrds played the Peekskill Palace on June 29, 1969. They had just released Dr. Byrds & Mr. Hyde, and McGuinn had a completely new Byrds lineup with Clarence White, John York, and Gene Parsons. It wasn’t exactly a popular time for the Byrds, and they were playing an afternoon and evening show that day. The afternoon show was a very small crowd, and my brother and I were sitting in the first row, waiting for the concert to begin. Roger walks in with his Rickenbacker over his shoulder and sits down between me and another guy and starts talking to us, and even asked us what songs we’d like to hear. It was a moment I’ll never forget, and both the afternoon and evening performances were terrific.
Howard Van Ackooy's Current Obsession:
My musical obsessions center around my love of guitars. It was hearing The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man and seeing Roger (then Jim) McGuinn playing that Rickenbacker 12-string that made me want to play guitar. I started taking lessons, and even had a pair of those McGuinn “granny glasses.” Since then, I’ve acquired many guitars (mostly electric) and, of course, had to have a Rickenbacker (I have two: a 36012-string in jetglow, and a 360 6-string in mapleglow, like Roger’s). I currently play in a local band, Stark Raven, mostly for fun, and love playing any type of guitar rock!
Shawn Hammond — Chief Content Officer
A: While covering the 2007 Ellnora Guitar Festival at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I made my way to a beverage area set up for press and artists who’d arrived the night before the show opened. As I perused the small spread of beers, in walked one of my biggest influences from my teen years—the man who’d almost single-handedly gotten me into funky chords and blistering chromatic runs: Vernon Reid of Living Colour.
Vernon Reid digs in.
Before you knew it, we were sitting elbow to elbow on a comfy little couch, shooting the breeze about this and that. Truthfully, I can’t remember a single thing we talked about. I’m sure I came across like a starstruck, bumbling fool, but cool ol’ Vern must be used to that, because he didn’t let it show!
Shawn Hammond's Current Obsession:
I don’t know if I can quite call it an “obsession” (yet?), but I’m definitely finding myself more and more intrigued with opera, including Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème.
Jason Shadrick — Associate Editor
A: In 2004, my girlfriend (now wife) and I were at the Blue Note in New York to hear Jim Hall and Charlie Haden play as a duo. After the set we headed upstairs to hit the restroom before catching a cab. As I waited for her, the dressing room door opened a crack and out walked Jim Hall. “Hey man, how are you?” he said. I somehow formed a sentence before he invited me into his dressing room and closed the door. A few minutes later Charlie Haden popped in and I had this amazing talk with two absolute heroes. Then the door suddenly opened and both Jim and Charlie looked puzzled as this woman (my girlfriend) barged in. “She’s with me, guys.” Nearly 20 years later, that has become a core memory for me.
Jason Shadrick's Current Obsession:
Thanks to a few musical pit gigs (Kinky Boots and The Sound of Music), I’ve been drilling down on my reading chops. It’s very fulfilling to be tasked to play the exact same thing night after night while a live theater show is happening above your head. There’s no musical issue that 100 gigs can’t fix.
