The Deep Roots

Leisure is not the cessation of work, but work of another kind, work restored to its human meaning, as a celebration and a festival. -Roger Scruton

We watched Easter Parade last night, as has been our tradition on Easter. In…

Think small. Ubiquity is overrated. - David Lowery

For as long as we’ve lived in Forest Hills, during the summer and fall there has been a farmers market in the Presbyterian Church parking lot on Ardmore Blvd. on Friday afternoons…

Review by Walt Bibinger 

"1985: Some Good Stuff " Harry Leahey & Ron Naspo

This newly released CD from Bottom Line Music captures a 1985 "Musical Mansions" concert in Montclair, NJ. Bassist Ron Naspo recorded the performance and after coming…

The Purcells - Watercolor by Bill Goodwyn (It makes it look like a story in The New Yorker)

On Friday, February 19, 2021, The Purcells, released their latest EP, Landscape Listens. A few days later, I stumbled across it…

A few weeks ago, a high school friend posted a Bandcamp link to a release by a young artist from Clinton, New Jersey named Avery Stoker called Endersine/Sundance. I grew up only a few miles from Clinton, and some…

I thought this lent I’d work on the symptoms of my music-related obsessive–compulsive personality disorder (MR-OCPD). I planned to give up asking myself: 

• Am I succeeding? 
• Will I ever be more successful or is this as good as it gets? 
• …

The following review of Never Coming Back appeared in Dagger Zine on February 8, 2021.

Its always nice when you find out that an occasional contributor to this site, in this case guitarist Mark Sullivan, is also a musician and…

This is the way writing songs goes for me. I wake up in the morning and there is a song in my head. I can hear it like it is on the radio. Chords, lyrics, melody, structure, and even the…

What if I've been chasing the wrong goal?

Recently I had this great idea, I’d join the Neil Young and Crazy Horse fan page on Facebook and post one of our Neil Young-influenced songs. The group has 25,000 subscribers! I…

Note: This post was written by the guitar pictured above. I, Mark Sullivan, had nothing to do with the content or characters described below and take no legal responsibility.

Mark is not a nostalgia kind of guy, so I’ve been…

Above: The Midnight Quartet: Frank Zanks on guitar on the far right. 

I’m reposting the following reflection written by my old friend John Oleniacz about Frank Zanks. All of us are from the small town of Hampton, NJ. It…

Once in a while something happens that may not have happened if things were normal, like Ryan renting a theater for a band and close friends only viewing of The Last Waltz. 

My favorite movie. The most influential piece…