Kathleen Tarrant

Nickel Creek’s Pavement cover is all sweetness and light, hanging too many ornaments on a thin branch. One day in my sophomore year of high school, my friend Isabella and I met for tea and breakfast burritos in our high school’s cafeteria. Isabella always loved weird tea, the kind that looked like sticks and smelled […]

If I like the record, why did I hate the show? A boy I had a crush on several years ago, who also wrote about music, was pretty into the War on Drugs. It was during that sweet time when Kurt Vile was still in the band, a couple of years after the release of […]

I Don’t Listen to Dave Matthews Anymore, but I’m Glad I Did

Part of Me Wanted to “Get” Rush Because They’re Marketed as a Boys’ Band

The summer before my sophomore year of high school, the year I transferred from public to private Catholic school, my friend Sarah and I decided to do one of those home box dye kits on my hair. I had brown hair, and I wanted to finally rebel. I wasn’t going to go to Catholic school […]

NOT. CHRISTIAN. Even though everything in their music is a Bible reference. This is a tough one. When I was a freshman in college, I had a huge, goofy crush on a seminarian. I know. I wanted to lead a man of god away from the chaste embrace of the mother church. I mean, whatever—at […]

The Dead got me. I tried to escape them. I need to preface this by saying that I ate a great deal of Cherry Garcia ice cream growing up. My dad loves Cherry Garcia. He does not, you may be interested to know, particularly like the Grateful Dead. I don’t think he dislikes the Grateful […]

PETER JUHL THE SWEET, distant boy I liked in college picked me up for a movie in his 1980s BMW, and we sat in the dark, warm theater. My hands were sweating profusely. It was one of those cold Montana nights that get dark at 4 p.m. I was too young to drink, so after […]

If someone sends me a Bob Dylan “deep cut” after this, I swear I’ll light my hair on fire. I TRIED TO pinpoint when exactly I started pretending to love Bob Dylan. I racked my brain for the boy who first put on “Like a Rolling Stone” and stared at me with misty eyes. Then […]

“Most of Morrison’s lyrics read as though lifted out of a ninth grader’s tear-soaked, semen-encrusted journal.” WE WERE sitting in his green Toyota Camry after he snuck over at midnight and handed me a mix CD complete with album art and cute little liner notes with inside jokes. It was half songs to introduce me […]

“I faked my way through that whole set, trying to guess what syllable I could logically mouth next.” WHEN THE FIRST boy musician ever to look my way told me he liked Wilco, my automatic 19-year-old response was, “Oh, yeah. Me, too.” I had never heard of Wilco. He enthusiastically asked if I loved A […]