Grammys, Valentine's Day, life

It occurs to me that this may be the only year, ever, that I can say that I've interviewed two of the biggest Grammy Award winners.

My piece on Adele from the late, great Venus.

My interview with Justin Vernon for PopMatters

I'm not planning on making a habit of this, and obviously, I have to get to people a long time before they even considered Grammy material if I want to talk to them (or a long time after, but that's another deal)...but still, kind of cool, yes?

Also, since it's that holiday with the hearts and the flowers, here's wishing everybody whatever variety of love they like best and also, maybe, some chocolate.

Kinda liking this new album by the Big Sleep, very slick, very pop, big whomping beats that are really fun to run to (am I wrong that Big Sleep used to be kind of a drone and nod band?)...and, as it happens, they have a song called "Valentine."

What I said about the grammys...

A couple of months ago, upon misguidedly volunteering to review some tepid crap by Los Lonely Boys, I went out on a limb to observe that "grammy-winning" or even "grammy-nominated" is often a synonym for "not very good."

On Monday, I am interviewing Adele, the 20-year-old British phenom just nominated for four Grammys.

Her album 19 is a bit top-heavy -- with strings and such draped over fragile little melodies, a slickness that it turns out you can buy at a store, if you know where to shop and have a big credit line, and, I admit, a certain amount of charm.

It's for Venus.

Here's a video of Adele on Jools Holland.