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Gary, Author at The Panic Manual

Song of the Day: Israel Nash, Rolling On

Posted on August 9, 2018 by Gary in Song of the Day | Leave a comment

I remember 2013’s Rain Plans like it was yesterday. No, really. While I listen to it quite frequently, it had also made me erroneously peg Israel Nash as a gritty, melancholy country songwriter. And I haven’t touched country since I said good-riddance to braces/dentists in high-school. But in reality since Rain Plans, he has put out an expansive album with Silver Season, shifting more towards a more open form of Americana. From the opening moments of “Rolling On” from Nash’s … →

Song of the Day: Tony Molina, Nothing I Can Say

Posted on August 8, 2018 by Gary in Song of the Day | Leave a comment

If brevity is the soul of wit, then the extremely brief album Kill the Lights from Tony Molina might be the wittiest kid on the block. At once fulfilling yet incomplete by design, it doesn’t just leave you wanting more folksy harmonies and miniature refrains, it positively asks you to look for more – like a purposeful intro to a long Pandora session. “Nothing I Can Say”, the first of 10 minute-long Lego® Folk-Songs® (they even managed to include fade … →

Song of the Day: Meg Myers – Tear Me to Pieces

Posted on August 6, 2018 by Gary in Song of the Day | Leave a comment

There are a few songs in recent memory that had me naturally reach for max volume (“The Apple” from VV Brown was one). Meg Myers’ new album Take Me to The Disco contains a good number of hugely cathartic songs, such as “Numb”, but “Tear Me to Pieces” may be the most potent of the bunch. Starting off from a short double segment of metronome pace and robotic enunciation, it hits its human stride very quickly. Myers green-lights huge distortions … →

Hot Docs Review: Pick of the Litter [Don Hardy Jr., Dana Nachman, 2018]

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Gary in Hot Docs | Leave a comment

Put down your smartphone, and spend an hour outdoors. You’ll likely start to notice how modern Homo sapiens are increasingly useless without a plethora of gadgetry to keep track of the minutiae of daily life. What happens if those gadgets now have minds of their own? Do you keep running try-outs until you find the match-made-in-heaven? Will yours be called “Jarvis” like millions other? Of course I may be talking about artificial intelligence … but not just yet. Man’s best … →