Essay

The Daily Vault is celebrating quite a milestone in its existence. Web sites come and go with a great deal of rapidity in this day and age but The Daily Vault has endured for 15 years. So, 15 years and what do you get? 15) 3,105,000 words in print. Let me say that this is a mathematical estimate, as I lost count at just over two million. 14) 350,000 minutes of music. This is another estimate. I got as far as the Lorne Greene album and couldn’t go any further. 13) Just over 7025 reviews. That is a lot of…

I started writing for The Daily Vault in October of 1997, nine months after site founder Christopher Thelen opened the doors. (For roughly the 734th time: thanks, Chris.)  Since then I’ve authored more than 550 reviews for the Vault, not to mention a few dozen interviews and essays, and a thousand or so blog, Facebook and Twitter posts. I’ve been the editor since January 2003, nine years now, three-fifths of the site’s lifespan. So, why am I still here? I think that’s not just a fair but a necessary question to ask from time to time. You should never do…

This is a story about a lot of things—creativity, ambition, success and conflict—but in the end it really all comes down to one irreducible principal.  It’s a story about friendship, and what can happen when it’s tested. The band Yes has been a lot of things over the years—psychedelic folk rockers, ambitious progressive rock pioneers, determined arena-rock hit-makers, and many shades in between. For those who’ve followed them closely over the years—a particularly stubborn and opinionated tribe of fans, wont to turn on both the band and each other at any moment—they are also something more.  Through their early ’70s…

Thanks to the Internet (and a few hours of boredom), I stumbled across The Daily Vault in 1997. I put in a request to review Liz Phair’s Exile In Guyville and founder and then-editor Christopher Thelen obliged. The Daily Vault prides itself on a quick response to reader requests as well as the massive variety of the reviews. It wasn't always this way -- then, it was one classic album per day, but now it's evolved into covering all genres, all ratings, all eras.As The Daily Vault turns 10, it’s natural to reminisce about how much has changed. After all,…

There is a line in Josh Groban’s heart-wrenching song “Home To Stay” which says “Look how far your dreaming’s gone.” I kind of feel that way as I write this, approximately two weeks away from the tenth anniversary of this site.It’s kind of awkward, as I gave up ownership and full control to Jason and his team over a year ago – a decision I do not regret, as Jason has taken the site into areas I never could have dreamed of. But it’s weird looking in on something that was literally a part of one’s daily life for so long.…

I officially joined the staff of the Daily Vault in October 1997, a little over nine years ago and a little over nine months after Christopher Thelen turned on the lights on January 13, 1997.  The site was in its infancy then, but the potential was obvious – a diverse and dedicated group of music fanatics sharing ideas and opinions from across the globe about the one subject they all shared a passionate interest in: music.After Chris welcomed me on board, my first, somewhat inauspicious review was of John Hiatt’s uncharacteristically mediocre disc Little Head.  And while in the intervening…

This one comes with some caveats.We at the DV try not to be needlessly negative. In general, music is a glorious thing, and in general, its creators deserve respect. Unless, that is, they prove themselves unworthy of it.Surprisingly -- after all, we've got more than our share of classic rock aficionados on the staff -- we discovered quite by accident recently that a large percentage of DV writers have harsh feelings about the Eagles, that superstar disbanded-and-reformed musical juggernaut that produced one of the seminal albums of the '70s, not to mention the best-selling greatest hits album of all time.…