The Importance of Music… | Adam WarRock and The Infinity Watch.

"It’s a weird place to be, feeling like you have succeeded, only to get to the point where you literally have zero idea what to do anymore."

I felt exactly like this in 2008, although my definition of "success" was getting SYFY out the door.

Stargate and Ester Dean, Making Music Hits : The New Yorker. Oh na-na, what's my name? I knew that most pop hits were constructed like this these days, but it's fascinating to read a play-by-play like this article. Also, never heard of a "top-liner" until now.

How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp | World news | The Guardian. Far, far, worse than any dystopian fiction I've read, and it's real. Grim and riveting.

Watch: Bruce Springsteen's 2012 SXSW Keynote Speech : NPR. An hour long and worth every second if you're a musician and looking for reasons to stay in the game.

Kevin Smith On Why You Don't Have To Be Kevin Smith To Try Innovative New Things | Techdirt.

When you hear somebody go "well of course he could do it, he's Kevin Smith"—those same assholes, before I did it, were like "it's never gonna work, it's dumb, he crazy". And then when it worked, they didn't go like "you know what? we were wrong"—instead they say "well only he could do it because he's Kevin Smith" and I say horseshit.

It's always tempting to attribute someone's success to where they are right now, as if the previous 10-20 years of taking risks and doing the scary hard work didn't count for anything.