September 25, 2026
Welcome back to The Something...Series! I'm excited to introduce the third season of the series after a summer hiatus.
Welcome back to The Something...Series! I'm excited to introduce the third season of the series after a summer hiatus.
SOMETHING OLD
Patti Smith - Pissing In a River
1976
Patti Smith - Pissing In a River
1976
The title Pissing In a River has a nasty exterior, like wearing brand new boots caked in mud, while the two-day downpour hasn’t come to a pause, and there’s a bitter soreness in your throat and a reserve of snot clogging your nostrils. It’s like the wind chill of the windy city descending in temperature as the wet clothes stuck to your skin have no chance of drying in the rain. It’s like standing ankle deep in a puddle of mud, dodging floating beer cans, and looking around to see overpriced plastic cup cocktails named after shitty bands and clown-painted faces. It all seems a little bit like an edgy farce.
But when you listen to it, you discover the real thing. It’s more like the sky finally clearing for only a moment while Patti Smith sings her heart out in a powerful song. It’s like realizing that mud is just wet dirt, and that’s only the earth. It’s a lot like feeling a punch to the guts with sonorously screeching guitars and poetry of the utmost heartbreak, devoid of pride but overflowing with vulnerability and even humiliation. The choice to hover over the water and pull your pants down outside as a woman with nothing else to lose.
That sort of paints a picture of my time at Riot Fest last weekend in Chicago. We went to see Patti Smith, Alanis Morrissette, and most eagerly, Elvis Costello. It was Patti, though, that blew our minds at 79 years old. She was profoundly connected to the audience, emotional and grateful at the sight of our enthusiasm to deal with the tremendous puddles of mud to see her. It’s kind of like her 1976 willingness to wade the length of the same river she’s pissed in, in pursuit of love that has vanished out of her grip. The difference is that Patti hasn’t vanished. Patti is still here with that same familiar voice, that same fervor and spirit, and that same drive to make the world a better place (with a selfless acknowledgement of how her generation failed at that, concluding the set with a cover of The Who’s My Generation).
Despite the awful weather conditions and my brewing sickness, it was worth it to see three terrific acts: Patti Smith most of all.
SOMETHING NEW
Rett Madison - Ninth Wheel
September 16th, 2026
Rett Madison - Ninth Wheel
September 16th, 2026
Instagram Reels and all its other short-form video siblings have a sly habit of taking up a lot of our time with little reward. Sometimes, though, you end up somewhere that might actually contribute something to your life. When I stumbled upon a demo video of this song this past summer, I immediately hit the "follow" button. In the most literal sense of the bastardized word, it was important for me to follow wherever this song was going and see it through.
I had never heard Rett Madison's voice until that moment, but it clicked with me right away. It has a stunning, slightly raspy quality and warm timbre. I think many of us have experienced the heartbreak of falling in love with demos that fall short when finally recorded in the studio, but this one didn't miss the mark for me. It's been on repeat for the past week and a half, with her voice shining as the song's brightest point, followed behind by such a timeless sounding melody.
At 24, I'm not yet racing against the clock in fear of being the last one around me to find lasting love. I do occasionally see photos online of the people I grew up with getting engaged, but not often enough to make my head spin. Though, I suspect it won't be too long until I'm surrounded by four couples in love, leaving me as the ninth wheel myself.
SOMETHING BORROWED
John Coltrane + Johnny Hartman - Autumn Serenade (Written by Peter DeRose + Sammy Gallop / First recorded by Harry James)
1963
John Coltrane + Johnny Hartman - Autumn Serenade (Written by Peter DeRose + Sammy Gallop / First recorded by Harry James)
1963
As of this Tuesday's fall equinox, it's officially autumn! And as of Wednesday, legendary saxophonist John Coltrane would officially be one hundred years old.
Born in 1926, Coltrane grew up in North Carolina and explored different instruments in his high school band before selecting the saxophone. By 1963, when he'd release his album with singer Johnny Hartman, he had already begun to leave his mark as one of the most influential musicians of all time. Hartman was known for ballads crooned by his rich baritone voice, but not necessarily jazz. He hesitated to join the project, but was convinced after seeing Coltrane play at iconic New York jazz club, Birdland. Together they recorded several songs and concluded the album with Autumn Serenade.
Composed by Peter DeRose with lyrics by Sammy Gallop in the 1940s, this jazz standard is a love letter to autumn, which serves as a season of memories belonging to a love that appears to have faded. Linked above is a truly fantastic instrumental recording by Harry James from 1945, which brings the song to life through an orchestra and trumpet rather than vocals and sax. Both recordings carry a sort of mysterious melancholy feeling to accompany falling leaves and the end of warm weather.
SOMETHING... BLUE
The Smashing Pumpkins - Blue
1994
The Smashing Pumpkins - Blue
1994
By coincidence, I discovered this past Wednesday that five years ago to the day marked my very first radio show. The Dizzy Express began in a studio, that even after securing a full-time job at a radio station, remains my favorite. I remember walking into the student union building with my hands sweaty and my stomach hurting, incredibly anxious to be on air for the very first time. Even on a weekday afternoon with most likely no one but my family listening, I was terrified. It certainly wasn't for lack of preparation, I studied the sound board, wrote and printed a script that included calculations of the length of each song and mic break, and spent hours curating the perfect playlist (that I still really love). The show was the beginning of the rest of my life, and has directly led me to the things in my present life that mean the most to me. Five years have passed and the show no longer exists in that capacity, but I continue spreading the gospel known as music right here as an amateur writer, as well as in my professional life.
Beginning the second half of my very first show was The Smashing Pumpkins' La Dolly Vita, a song from their 1994 b-sides compilation titled Pisces Iscariot. Pretty much every song on there would have been brilliant additions to their first two records, but their material at that point was already so vast, there wasn't enough room. One of my other favorites from the collection is Blue, which is the theme I always like to kick off each season of the Something...Series with.
It opens with ominous wind chimes before D'arcy Wretzky's heavy and winding bass line leads the rest of the band in. From there, we have a pretty standard 90s alt rock song, until the Smashing Pumpkins remind us why they were unique in an era of plenty of similar sounding rock. By the two minute mark, the song has gradually slowed down into hypnotic psychedelic section. Clearly inspired by 60s psychedelia with a lyrics reference to Some Velvet Morning while also holding a place on the track list directly after a cover of Girl Named Sandoz by The Animals (Sandoz being the Swiss drug company that first synthesized LSD), the song concludes while still in this dreamy haze.
One of the most exciting parts of being in Chicago last weekend was knowing it was the homeland of the Smashing Pumpkins, who were my absolute favorite band in high school and still rank very highly among my most cherished musical acts. I even got to visit Billy Corgan's tea shop, Madame Zuzu's, and buy some Pumpkins-themed chocolate. It was a quiet Monday morning in there, so instead of seeing the real Corgan as I secretly hoped I might, we saw a life-sized cardboard cut-out of him. That was cool, I guess. I also liked the player piano that played my favorite song when I was a little kid, Bad Day by Daniel Powter. Not exactly when I was expecting, but it was a sweet conclusion to what had been a weekend full of musical connections that mean a whole lot to me.