Zachary Lipez

3 weeks ago | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Records!This week, I will be fifty years old. Or, as I like to think of it, “eleven years till Steve Albini time.” Existentialism feels particularly grotesque in a season of mass annihilation, and I’m not (quite) enough of a centrist hack to keep shouting “but… but… the black plague! The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire! WW1! Biafra! Etc!” as the water rises around me. That the water never quite gets my soft and supple toes wet doesn’t matter. Like you, I’m an empath. My feelings are soaked.

1 month ago | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

“Now watch me make a movie like Albert Hitchcock.”— Pitbull Pitchfork had billy woods on its radar as early as 2013, only ten years into the something-years-old rapper’s recording career. It only took another five years before woods’ name carried enough freight to overrule any house style and the man’s preferred lower cases were applied.

Mar 10, 2025 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

1. The death of David Johansen, nurtural Poindexter, the lead singer of the New York Dolls, was announced in the early hours of March 1st, first by Morrissey, then by Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, then by Laughing Hyenas/Negative Approach’s John Brannon. Out of the still living, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate throuple to break the bad news.

Feb 15, 2025 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Punk is a genre of music, a fashion, and a lifestyle. Depending on who you ask, punk began in the mid ‘60s in Lima, Peru with Los Saicos, in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s in Detroit, with the Stooges, MC5, and Death, in the mid ‘70s, in Cleveland and NYC, with Rocket From the Tombs, the Ramones, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell (and about fifty others), or punk, as we understand it today, “actually” started in the UK with Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, and the Sex Pistols.

Jan 24, 2025 | zacharylipez.ghost.io | Zachary Lipez

Dear Abundant Livers, As regular readers know, I post an anniversary poem for Zohra every year. Usually in December, occasionally in January (we have a complicated chronology). This year it's a bit late, but I think it turned out swell (and fwiw Zohra agrees). So... this newsletter is a poem.