Corey duBrowa (@COREYDUBROWA on PI.FYI) is kind of like the site’s cool dad. He’s been around since the very beginning and is known for thoughtful recs that range from the alpacas at his ranch to Charli XCX and Echo & the Bunnymen. He’s been a freelance music journalist for more than two decades and has contributed to publications like Rolling Stone, GQ, MAGNET Magazine, Paste, No Depression, Village Voice, and Seattle Weekly. He has a brand new book out now that’s a love letter to EPs, and explores the important format through a list of the 200 all time best. Lucky for us, Corey is here to tell us what they’re into.
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The extended play, the EP: More than a single. Less than an album. With an immediacy that flies in the face of an LP’s “grand concept:” an EP turns out to be a great way for an artist to write a few songs and get them out quickly, without fanfare or pomp. A short, sharp shock to the system that can serve as a musical snapshot whereas an LP might represent a full photo album. My friend Britt Daniel from Spoon calls the EP "a dodge" and I get what he means: "The EP is a musical sweet spot where you can be on your own, under the radar, secure in the knowledge that what you’re making is just for you and those who love you enough to follow you anywhere." Underrated form factor.
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If the EP is music's most unheralded delivery mechanism, then Pavement's 1992 four-track, 11-minute wonder is its Mona Lisa: a mysterious, knowing smile in an undersized package that packs an outsized punch. Stephen Malkmus picks the pockets of pop culture while it's not looking and rearranges the stolen pieces into a melodic noise sculpture that defines the era from which it came. Kurt Cobain got all the flowers (and agony) for repping as the spokesman of his slack generation, but for my money, it’s S.M. and his merry band of pranksters who perfectly distilled and bottled the Gen X mood. So much style that it's wasted.
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In the land of three-bite tasting dishes, this little cave-cum-stylized hallway on Avenue A is queen: vaguely Italian, established by the two founders of Roberta's in Bushwick and its dearly departed backyard cousin Blanca, and the perfect pre-show haunt for anyone headed to Bowery Ballroom for a night of slummin-it musical adventure.
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"Short books about albums." Dancing about architecture in miniaturized form. My proposals have been rejected three times (the furthest along I got was for an AC/DC proposal, funny enough; so sue me, I think they're under-loved for all they've accomplished) but that doesn't mean that the series isn't uniformly excellent, whether the author in question is opining about the personal meaning of the album in question (the Decemberists' Colin Meloy waxing poetic about the Replacements' "Let It Be"), making up a story about an album (Mountain Goats' John Darnielle imagining a young psychiatric patient's pining for Black Sabbath's monstrous "Master of Reality"), or a more straightforward recitation of the story of any given LP (my friends Annie Zeleski and Amanda Petrusich knock the stuffing out of Duran Duran's "Rio" and Nick Drake's "Pink Moon," respectively). Geek terrain. My favorite place to be.
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New York City is quite literally full to the brim of these secret historical societies. At this quaint Bowery/Ukrainian Village walk-up, you get a feeling for an early 19th-century merchant's family and how they really lived: it is the only family home in New York City that has been preserved intact, frozen in time, and contains more than 3000 items/possessions from the wealthy clan who resided there from 1835-1933, including furniture, decorative arts, clothing, photographs and books, and an incredible array of household items, with tour guides who expertly walk you through the life and times of the Tredwells. A great way to spend a weekend morning and a window into a phantom New York that no longer exists.
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