About Honest Noise

Rock, Indie, Folk, Punk & New Wave — For People Who’ve Been Paying Attention

I’m a 58-year-old Gen Xer from the Midwest, and music has been the soundtrack to just about everything in my life.

It all started with a relative’s collection of Motown albums. I fell hard — The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye — that music lit something up in me that never went out. From there I kept pulling on that thread. The Beatles, Woody Guthrie, punk, new wave, folk rock, indie. If it had soul and something honest to say, I was listening.

Live music changed everything

My first concert was The Go-Go’s in 1982. I walked in not knowing what to expect and walked out completely hooked on the live music experience. Over the next four decades I’ve been lucky enough to attend hundreds of shows — small clubs, festival stages, and everything in between.

The most memorable? Bruce Springsteen at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in 1985. There are concerts you attend, and then there are concerts that become part of who you are. That was one of them.

Why Honest Noise?

Because that’s what great music is. It doesn’t perform — it tells the truth. Whether it’s a three-chord punk song or a finger-picked folk ballad, the music that has stayed with me over 45 years has always been the stuff that felt real.

Honest Noise is a place for people who love music the way I do — deeply, eclectically, and without apology. Here you’ll find new artists worth knowing, classic records worth revisiting, concert stories, live music tips, and the occasional opinion that might start an argument.

I’ll give any music a try. I love getting recommendations from friends and family. And I believe music adds something irreplaceable to people’s lives — connection, memory, joy, catharsis, identity.

That’s what this site is about. Pull up a chair. Let’s talk music.

Have a recommendation? A show I should know about? A record that changed your life? I’d love to hear from you.