Some of those in our lives we call friends no longer fit the definition of friendship. It’s time we moved them to a different shelf. — No, I am not going to do detective work about who your “real” friends are. But have you noticed that a percentage of the people who we call friends — or even close friends — are, in fact, acquaintances, or even placebos? Should we go on pretending as if we…

Windows 95 Startup Sound slowed by 4000%. Also, my dad bought me a computer late and so I turned out this way. — Our heart-wrenching embrace with Windows 95 was a déjà vu. We had pictured her specs and new features. We had dreamed about touching her supple FAT32 breasts on a Pentium 1 MMX 233 MHz bed. But we were in a dark youth phase of barely making ends meet. The charm…

Just before the summer of 2023 begins, let’s imagine it dead for a few minutes. It’s really not that bad. — Time’s up for summer! And here is your song to bid farewell. We tried to be optimistic. After all, and in spite of your rage, a leaving summer is the best summer. People from the North are obsessed with it. People from the south could not care less. It has…

Yet another five-song wave ride of the music the world has bitterly ignored — This is the third time I get the pleasure of doing this on The Riff. The music business has always been cruel. But for the underdogs, the situation has exacerbated as they are paid even less. Some of your favorite indie artists can barely afford their European tours. …

To make sure no one ever reads them — Today was chaotic. I watched a puppet show and I fall in that puddle every year. It is a part of my masochistic ego. The puppet show was filled with people rolling joints and promoting our minors to roll joints, too. It was sponsored by Pepsi. In it, middle-aged people…

An ongoing list for those who believe self-help should not become a business — The books on this list leave their marks on you. But they are not written for self-help. In fact, they sometimes rage against it. They are laser-focused on what they have researched for years and are therefore self-development by proxy, which is occasionally even more useful than the ones in…

On a forgotten hit, and creating music in Iran occupied by the Islamic Regime — One hidden fact we could not read between the lines of Safe Barracks’ single “HeadHunter”, concealed ‘neath a thick skin of selected snacks from various desirable pop and electro super hits of ours, is that it is a fruit of a handshake that took place in Tehran, Iran. Do you…

Because I couldn’t make the title above less SEO-friendly — For Moon Glyph, one of our favorite eccentric record labels, we are going to be butterflies around the flame for a long while to come and it has been like that since we first heard Food Pyramid. The label dropped “Earth” by Laughing Eye Weeping Eye in 2015. …

The term I accidentally heard on a Swedish podcast is a dominant obstructor of progress — Menacing title, isn’t it? What quality or state of being is this? Who is a nuance extremist? Let’s set the terminology right first. A nuance extremist is not just somebody who has trouble making a decision. Case one Dad sets out to buy a new phone for himself. He spends months scrutinizing…