Marc Hirsh
Marc Hirsh lives in the Boston area, where he indulges in the magic trinity of improv comedy, competitive adult four square and music journalism. He has won trophies for one of these, but refuses to say which.
He writes for the Boston Globe and has also been spotted on MSNBC and in the pages of Amplifier, the Nashville Scene, the Baltimore City Paper and Space City Rock, where he is the co-publisher and managing editor.
He once danced onstage with The Flaming Lips while dressed as a giant frog. It was very warm.
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New York's Looker embraces the DIY approach on "Radio," and it seems at first that the band's enthusiasm outpaces its abilities. But the song works anyway, thanks to Looker's melodic sense and its original take on hoary topics.
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Spoon's songs are rarely about any one ingredient, words included. "My Little Japanese Cigarette Case" serves as a prime example of how the band fits many disparate pieces together to create a structure that might well collapse if any one of them were removed. -
Nick Drake never bothered with covers on the three albums released in his lifetime. Part of that may have been due to the specific sadness at the core of his music, but the traditional ballad "Winter Is Gone" shows that his melancholy didn't sprout from nowhere. -
"Runouttaluck," from the Toronto band The Golden Dogs, is the sound of pop nerds engaging in charmingly bratty displays of melodic gamesmanship. Throughout the song, the band tips its hat to pop music that can be quirky and hooky all at once. -
It's difficult to write a song that evokes the slowed-time pull of sleepiness without lulling listeners toward unconsciousness themselves. Eleni Mandell pulls it off in "Moonglow, Lamp Low," which draws on a gentle cowboy lope and a saxophone that sounds like captured breath. -
The High Strung's "Gravedigger" seems to condense the entirety of The Who's Meaty Beaty Big And Bouncy into a single song. It shows both a rich appreciation for the finer points of The Who and a sharper streak of originality by capturing the band's weirdness.
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An acolyte of the Todd Rundgren school of lone-wolf power-pop, Richard X. Heyman has gone it mostly alone for two decades now. Often playing nearly every instrument on his records, he's produced a slim but sturdy catalogue of superior pop music. -
Writing "N.Y. Doll" from the perspective of a late New York Dolls bassist, Robyn Hitchcock opts not to copy the Dolls' pre-punk strut and roar. Instead, he sticks to what he knows, slowly stretching the guitar jangle until it ripples and pulses with the hum of psychedelia.
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In spite of its proclamatory title, there's no grand message to be shared in Kaiser Chiefs' "Everything Is Average Nowadays": These guys are simply bored and disagreeable, with a driving, mod-revival rhythm borrowed from The Jam circa All Mod Cons. -
Despite its success in Australia, You Am I has never made a dent in the U.S. But its new Convicts seems to suggest that other issues besides a failure to break through may explain the four-year delay since the band's last album, 2003's Deliverance.
