1) The music of Drive-By Truckers / As a pandemic-long exercise in staying somewhat human, a friend and I continue taking deep, methodical dives into artist catalogs, one at a time. We’ve landed on Drive-By Truckers, a band I’ve long appreciated. Yet I never started at the jump with these guys and, as I listen front to back, I’m impressed by at least three things:
—So-called fans who accused the band of going political or “woke” on recent albums really never paid attention. The Truckers maintain a consistent tone throughout their work, barreling through Southern myths and contributing to a honest account, a reckoning bent toward reconciling. The Truckers didn’t change. Maybe you did.
—I’ve always dug Patterson Hood’s songs but, on this fuller go-round, am reminded that Mike Cooley might be one of our greatest unsung songwriters.
—I knew Jason Isbell’s run with the band was dynamic, but it’s amazing to hear him run through the gate as a fully-forrmed songwriter, then somehow get better and better over the years.
2) Oso Oso, “Sore Thumb” / Here, bandleader Jade Lilitri works from within an emo-influenced framework, but weaves in such colorful threads of pop songcraft. These songs bounce and bob and weave in ways that are really emotionally and musically satisfying.
3) Wednesday, “Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling 'em Up” / A covers record can be a beautiful thing if handled well, and this North Carolina outfit creates a wonderfully reverent and fragile document of its influences here. A perfect cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ “Perfect” rings true, given the band’s noisy guitar lean; but takes on songs by the likes of Chris Bell, Roger Miller and the aforementioned Drive-By Truckers lend real depth.
4) Diane Seuss, “‘I wish you a sexy, dangerous, jazz-shaped immortality.’ Diane Seuss’s Advice for Life as a Writer” for LitHub / This commencement address to writing students, delivered by the remarkable poet Diane Seuss, is a beautifully righteous sermon on creativity and connection. This is a text worth revisiting and revering. I’ll share just one paasage here:
I wish you a sexy, dangerous, jazz-shaped immortality. I wish you the touch of the hand of the dead through the page; I wish you the will, the courage, to resurrect them via your attention. The guts to deconstruct the lies. I wish you a daisy chain of memorable kisses that link you back to your ancestors, and forward to those writers you can barely imagine.
5) Tyler Wigg-Stevenson and Beca Bruder, “Love and Sadness Amid the Threat of Nuclear War” for Comment / In These Days, I’m grateful for thinking that is clear-eyed yet paired with an appropriately heavy heart. Wigg-Stevenson, a priest, author and activist I’ve long admired, provides that here in a conversation with Comment’s Beca Bruder. Their dialogue is thoughtful, informative and robustly soulful. To wit, these words from Wigg-Stevenson:
So what you do is, you love. You love even when it’s futile, and you love in the best ways that you possibly can—whether or not that means military intervention. The question we’re all wrestling with here is how do you love? You can’t bring about peace on earth and goodwill to all. But you can, in your own way, be faithful to the God who calls us to seek his kingdom, who offers salvation in Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, sometimes loving faithfully will mean being very sad.