Friends, I've made a new website for my editing and writing services. If you might need such services, know someone who does, or have a network where it's appropriate to share, I hope you'll keep me in mind. briangrayhowe.com

Wrote about the new Sam Amidon record for Pitchfork. It's good but "I See the Sign" has still not been outdone and probably never will be:

pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Thanks to Walter Magazine for carrying my poem “Prophecy” in its Jan issue. I guess it’s about how we have been flung in certain unalterable ways but can find branching paths if we look very hard. So it’s a poem for the new year, for this new year, when we’ll need all our resolve in our flungness.

Unless the Poetry Foundation is trollier than we ever guessed, this is a real Edward Lear poem, and for Victorian children’s verse it’s absolutely filthy

If you’re looking for something to do in Durham tonight, come to Shadowbox!

I wrote a short but deep profile of the expert cello improviser Daniel Levin for @indyweek.bsky.social and it was all yellow

My heart sinks a little whenever I see someone post that Bluesky isn’t a good Twitter replacement because it lacks this or that infestation of brainrot. To me the whole point is that it’s chance to build something better. The site’s still up if you just want daily toxic drama, go do it there!

The Democratic Party claims to be progressive but lies about its motive: to preserve a wealthy minority at the expense of an impoverished majority. Trump lies about facts but is quite honest about his motives, ghastly as they are, and Americans hate being condescended to. I'm not surprised he won.

This week in the INDY, I got to write a very intimate profile of one of my very favorite local musicians, Keenan Jenkins of XOXOK. If you check out just one thing from my NC coverage chumbox, this is the one. FFO Moses Sumney, Solange, good-ass music generally:

indyweek.com/music/on-xox...

Living in a tiny cabin has somehow added to my esteem, which I didn't think was possible, for Jeanette Winterson, who can get more into a couple hundred small pages than many writers can in a foot of high-value shelf space.

Let's go back to the heady days of 2004, when the Triangle music scene was reformulating after the post-'90s lull and internet crit was arising to raise hell. From those waters, Schooner set sail; here's my INDY Q and A as the original lineup reforms tomorrow night:
indyweek.com/music/the-or...