Sam Wilkinson Writes Words

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The Sheepskin Trail Festival in Point Marion PA.

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Das Racist - You Oughta Know

first Mixtape, Shut Up, Dude Tracklist: 1. Whos That? Brooown! 2. You Oughta Know 3. Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell 4. Rainbow in the Dark 5. Fake Patoi...

Say what you will about the group that did “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell” - which, frankly, was a perfectly good track, despite its reputation - but “You Oughta Know” is awesome. It is also the only good thing that Billy Joel has ever been involved in.

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I’m not smart enough to have the first clue what’s going on here, but as far as inexplicable musical interludes involving multiple accordions covering RL Burnside’s “Let My Baby Ride”, this thing is absolutely right on. 

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Ghost - Square Hammer

Music video by Ghost performing Square Hammer. (C) 2016 Loma Vista Recordings Distributed by Concord Music Group, Inc. http://vevo.ly/lZTyr2

Ghost’s “Square Hammer” absolutely shreds. 

Also, it came out almost two years ago, which means I am washed as can be. 

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Sterling Thin-X Paint Thinner, from a barn in Western Maine.

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Paramore’s “Hard Times”

There are few pleasures greater than finding a new song, even if its “newness” is entirely up for debate. In this particular case, Paramore’s “Hard Times” is almost a year old, but I only ran into it yesterday. And then listening to it 492 times in a row. 

My teenager tells me this is the kind of music emo kids at her high school listen to. That troubles me slightly. I don’t have hair anymore, much less enough to comb over one of my eyes while I stare mournfully into the distance with the other. 

I get the appeal though. This is the chorus:

“Hard times, gonna make you wonder why you even try

Hard times, gonna take you down and laugh when you cry

these lives, and I still don’t know how I even survive

hard times, hard times, and I gotta get to rock bottom”

I’m older and grayer now but great new music is great new music. And besides, Duke Ellington said that anything that sounds good is good. That rule has never once let me down if it means I occasionally share my fandom with some mopey teenagers.