Roger’s year in music, 2025

Yes, this is 2026, and I’m supposed to be recapping my year in music in 2025. To get there, we must begin by stumbling...

10 Songs for Remembering Barry Sears

https://www.rogerbaylor.com/2025/10/30/r-i-p-barry-sears-a-friend-since-kindergarten-who-changed-my-life-over-lunch/ Barry Sears, one of my oldest and dearest friends, died unexpectedly in October. It was a profound shock amid a sad year of loss. However,...

Forty 1970s-era albums for December, 2025

Complete as of December 27, 2025 Nostalgia regularly afflicts me, and as a result, I endeavor to keep it at arm’s length. But 2025 has been...

John Lennon: Life (and death) is what happens to you while you’re busy making...

(An essay originally published at NA Confidential in 2005, and often repeated. It has been lightly edited.) On the morning of December 9, 1980, I...

On making the San Fernando Valley one’s home sweet home

I’ve been to California only twice, in 1978 and 2006, for no more than a few days each time. Often it occurs to me that...

Black Friday ain’t nothing but a memorable song by Steely Dan

(This post originally appeared at NA Confidential in 2017. Photo credit: Library of Congress, via PBS.) For the past four decades, any mention of "Black...

Still failing to reincarnate Keith Moon

 47 years ago this month, I was 18 years old, dipping a disinterested toe into college, and utterly devastated that Keith Moon, drummer for...

Roger’s year in music, 2024

The intro remains the same, because I'm lazy. --- Music does something to me, and I’ve never been able to explain exactly why. It just happens. My molecules...

The Songs for a (P&u) Departure (4): “Once upon a time I stood for...

We're told that Nov. 15 will be the last day for Pints&union in New Albany prior to the pub's inglorious "Hail Mary" flight to...

The Songs for a (P&u) Departure (3): “Don’t go away mad, just go away”

We're told that Nov. 15 will be the last day for Pints&union in New Albany prior to the pub's inglorious "Hail Mary" flight to...

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40 Years in Beer (Book III), Part 92: Pentecostal pews, beer judging exams and...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book III), Part 91: New Albany’s brewing history, prior to NABC resuming it. It would be perfectly reasonable of the...

40 Years of Sidebars: Hugo Claus, Frans Masereel & NABC’s one-off Silent Oath Oud...

This Belgian cultural excursion didn’t slot handily into the “40 Years in Beer” narrative, and so I've declared it suitable as a “sidebar.” The...

40 Years in Beer (Book III), Part 91: New Albany’s brewing history, prior to...

Previously: 40 Years in Beer (Book III), Part 90: A brewery for the New Albanian in all of us, Lite-free NABC debuts in 2002. In...