The Mutual Admiration Society - February 2024

A newsletter is nothing without community, and few things are more personally gratifying than shamelessly plugging the work of people I admire. Once a month, Duque's Delight will share the work of people I care about both personally and professionally - the better to spread the word and turn you on to some great work.

Reading and Writing

Mike Joseph's Uh, Musings: My dear, dear friend Mike and I have known each other since I was just out of college and looking for some sort of community within writing about music. Our bond has taken us a lot of really fascinating places - I like to think we do a good job of being there for each other when it's really needed - and on his own, he's a super compassionate, caring, open-minded person with a knack for bringing great people together. He has a Substack that, every time it's in my inbox, I am like "oooh!" (I was particularly touched by this moment of kindness in which I claim tertiary involvement) and also does a really vital podcast called Detoxicity, which presents honest conversations between men about trying to undo the tangled web of expected behaviors and thoughts that make masculinity a weird prison that, in the wrong hands, is kind of net-negativing humankind. (I have been on it, and hope to do so again from the perspective of being a new dad, which is happening...so soon.)

xoxo Gossip Giancaspro: The first time I met my friend Tara, she was pretty dead set on being my friend. I certainly didn't hate that; she's a lovely and thoughtful person who for my last birthday got me a button she didn't know I once had and lost and really missed. Reading her devilishly funny and emotionally honest newsletter is tied with texting her my thoughts about said newsletter as my second favorite thing about our friendship. My first favorite thing about our friendship is that she and I have discovered we know multiple people from very different walks of life. (My friend Josh, a really great writer and a guy whose wedding I was very emotional to be in? They went to high school. What?)

Jefitoblog: One of the first people who I wasn't related to that actually gave a hoot about my writing was Jeff Giles, a savvy, snarky (but in a good way) pop culture critic who founded a site I loved toward the end of college called Popdose. It's still around, and I think you can find some of my early, semi-embarrassing writing if you look hard enough. I've made my peace with it. Anyway, Jeff's pre-Popdose Internet home Jefitoblog recently got reactivated after many years - I believe it got stolen by a wizard, or something - and while all of it is good, his recent thoughts on the new single by Billy Joel, a guy we both love (who I'll be writing about in due time), made me go "Ahhh! That's my guy right there." (Jefitoblog is also running on Ghost, and his straightforward praise of its no-nonsense CMS is why you're reading this courtesy of said host and not, I dunno, Patreon or Blogspot or me just yelling ideas at you.)

Seeing and Listening

Julian and Alex Forever: There aren't enough words in this moment to convey my excitement that two of my favorite musicians (who are also really good friends to each other) are putting out new albums this year. I'm of course talking about Julian Velard and Alex Dezen of The Damnwells. Julian and Alex's music came into my life during a very low period, so to get two new albums at a very different, nicer period feels like a dream come true. (Full disclosure: I'm writing liner notes for Julian's record, but immaterial to that, I really think it's great.) If you've got Facebook, they did a really great livestream today that you can see here and here. And if you click the other links above you can contribute to their Kickstarters, which are almost done and already fully funded, but what's the harm in supporting great indie artists? (Nothing. The answer is "nothing.")

The Armchair Auteur: I have never met Dom Griffin in person, but he's been a king among players in my online life for something like a decade. (The closest we ever came to meeting is he gave a really nice review to a play my wife was in. She's never met him either, but she clocked him during the performance and it was all very kind stuff.) He is raw and intelligent and funny as hell, and I get at least an hour of that once a week on his podcast, linked above. (I hope to goodness he saw Madame Web and talks about it on a forthcoming episode, because boy do I have thoughts.) He was also on this podcast recently and I am just tickled at the idea of hearing even more about him this week, from him!

Everything Iconoclassic: I'm beyond grateful to have had many mentors in my life, and Jeremy Holiday is one of them. He runs a great reissue label called Iconoclassic Records, and just announced the label's first Record Store Day project, which is a great achievement no matter how long you've been working in the music business. And I'll be real with you: working in any capacity in the music or entertainment or media or arts business is uhhhhh not easy right now (he said, before sighing and looking for job postings). But his victories make me, a guy who's looked up to him for truly 15 years, feel like anything is achievable with the right amount of work and luck. May it be that way for any of you reading this, too, whatever your ambitions are. Let's go out there and do our best.