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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"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. -
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. -
Singer Kele Okereke watches as society begins viewing him with suspicion in "Where Is Home?" Any instrument that's not a drum kit or a voice is almost beside the point: During the verses, guitars and keyboards hang around for atmosphere when they can be bothered to show up at all.
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As befits its running time — but not its seemingly nonsensical title — The Pipettes' "The Burning Ambition of the Early Diuretics" is simple: A girl doesn't understand why the object of her affection refuses to admit what every indication tells her is true. So she asks, firmly but sweetly, for answers. -
For its contribution to the Band tribute album Endless Highway, Widespread Panic offers neither a faithful cover of "Chest Fever" nor a recasting. Instead, the group takes an approach so obvious, and so unlikely to succeed, that few ever try it: They try to beat the original at its own game. -
World/Inferno Friendship Society's countless members convene around Jack Terricloth, whose grinning, genial stage persona only amplifies what appears to be a sinister intent. It should be a mess, but it coalesces instead into a combination of Bruce Springsteen, The Pogues and the noise the devil makes as cities burn. -
One of the best albums of the '80s, and certainly one of the most unjustly overlooked, Gregson and Collister's Home and Away has finally received the reissue it's long deserved. It's a spare, gorgeous record, and no song is more spare or gorgeous than "All the Time in the World." -
As introductions go, The Duke Spirit's "Cuts Across the Land" is a strong one. It's the sound of five different noisemakers playing essentially the exact same part, presenting the band as a single, unitary creature fueled by its own momentum.
