April 2025 media
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Side Story: A new podcast from the Friends at the Table folks about video games. The list of people who could get me to add another video game podcast to the pile at this point is short, but Austin Walker is at the top. It’s great to have him back on that beat regularly after years of sporadic guest appearances during the post-Waypoint era. And I’ve really enjoyed the rest of the cast as well! This is already a favorite listen just three episodes in. It might even finally pull me into the mainline Friends at the Table show.
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Luminescent Creatures World Tour: If money were no object, I would travel to see every Ichiko Aoba concert like a Deadhead; as it is I still go to as many as I can manage, which will be seven by the end of the year. In addition to the typical one-woman shows, some dates on this tour feature a string quintet and piano to support the more densely-arranged songs (“Luciférine,” say). I think I still prefer the former type—in particular, there’s more variety in the setlists when she doesn’t have to restrict herself to songs the ensemble has learned—but both have been a lot of fun.
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Summer of Soul: A music documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, an event that I admit I had no idea about. It features a fun mix of archival footage (which sat undiscovered for decades!) and present-day interviews with participants and attendees. Seeing everyone’s faces light up as they relive lost moments from their youth is really something else. And, of course, there are the performances themselves: Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, B.B. King, Sly and the Family Stone, and on and on. Great stuff.