Martin Douglas

Published my final piece for KEXP yesterday. Onward and upward.

www.kexp.org/read/2025/12...

"If you need circumstances to be ideal to try, maybe you just suck." —Jon Moxley

The only groups who could touch the MGs were Funkadelic, The Meters, and The JBs. That’s the entire list. A transformative guitarist in a revolutionary group.

The Best Albums of 2025: Day 1, A–L Day one of our three-day look at the year’s best records.

For my friends at @bandcamp.com, I wrote about the best John Dwyer album of 2025.

daily.bandcamp.com/best-of-2025...

Birthday Happiness to Jimi Hendrix, born November 27, 1942. Here he is onstage backing The Ronettes:

The best, most nuanced opinions I've read about this movie (that I really enjoyed). By far.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: On Etran De L'Aïr and Lifted Ancestral Weight An unreleased personal essay inspired by the guitar heroes of Niger

Wrote about Etran de L'Air and whatever the opposite of ancestral weight is. (Ancestral levity? Ancestral lightness?)

trickbag.substack.com/p/from-the-a...

My personal rule is the first format on which an album is released is the release date.

Speaking from my personal experience, I use Substack specifically to counterbalance that fact—and also because I don't have the privilege of avoiding Nazis in real life anyway.

Indie music should have a figure like Trick Trick in Detroit—someone who is so connected in the streets that artists have to get a pass just to play there.

😬😬😬

Not to gloat, but here is a view from my lodging.

Turns out sunshine and Prozac really helps with depression! Who knew?

I'm seeing people wonder why ICE is going after Charlotte.

ICE has been at war with Charlotte's sheriff ever since he won in 2018.

We'd covered this at Bolts back in the day; this quote is from that sheriff:

Why am I posting about baseball instead of the Epstein files? Motherfucker, we all already knew what was in them files.

If Aaron Judge winning American League MVP over Cal Raleigh isn't a clear indicator of sweeping market bias (not just in sports but everywhere), I don't know what is.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: In Observance of the Slow Death of the Alt-Weekly An ode to idiosyncratic local publications in the midst of mass media homogenization

BREAKING NEWS: Working in music media means dealing with a constant state of anxiety about your field crumbling under the weight of late stage capitalism (I wrote this op-ed in 2022 lol).

trickbag.substack.com/p/from-the-a...

FROM THE ARCHIVES: In Observance of the Slow Death of the Alt-Weekly An ode to idiosyncratic local publications in the midst of mass media homogenization

BREAKING NEWS: Working in music media means dealing with a constant state of anxiety about your field crumbling under the weight of late stage capitalism (I wrote this op-ed in 2022 lol).

trickbag.substack.com/p/from-the-a...

Happy birthday! 🎂🎈

Depends on the editor in my experience! I was supposed to interview a pretty big artist for my soon-to-be-former employer and asked a publication I work with a lot if they wanted it. They said yes more or less instantaneously.

Chicago rapper Adamn Killa tells cops to 'arrest me, daddy.' Getting arrested won't stop him. Adam Kelly, who goes by the stage name Adamn Killa, was handcuffed and briefly held in a squad car after interrupting a traffic stop for one of his social media videos. After he was released, he went ...

Very sun-times to hold off on writing about Adamn Killa till he got arrested for doing arrest me daddy lol chicago.suntimes.com/news/2025/11...

I was notified last week that I am getting laid off from KEXP in December. I don't really want to talk about it. But are you an editor for a reputable music publication with decent pay? Get at me: douglasmartin49@gmail.com

💔

Definitely hopeful after Friday's game. If Friday would have ended like Thursday's game (which I went to), I would say we're cooked.

I literally shouted when I saw the news! Stoked for you and the band!

Hahaha omg 😭😭😭

Hahaha I can see this just like I'm sitting in the back seat.

A beautiful requiem for the miracle that was D'Angelo.

The pen, the voice, the face, the talent.

The three classics.

The genius that he could summon by force of will.

The impossibility of categorizing him.

The void that his death leaves.

By Abe Beame

www.passionweiss.com/2025/10/14/d...

When I write or talk about things like soul and the blues, I'm not referencing musical genres, but a spiritual disposition. That said, D'Angelo was on a very short list of the very best soul artists in the history of music.

YouTube video by GBD Link Wray - Hidden Charms.

Happy Indigenous People's Day. Make sure you pay homage to the creator of garage punk.

youtu.be/MUBck5KbUvE?...