A Magazine of Popular (and Unpopular) Culture
In 2003 I was hired as managing editor of a startup free weekly paper in Wichita. F5 Weekly (RIP) covered music, movies, art, politics, etc., and the whole of the …
Secret Meetings: An Alternative Playlist
Music heads everywhere were stunned and saddened this week to hear of the passing of industry icon Mo Ostin, a man who somehow became one of the most successful music …
Thirty Songs in Memory of Mo Ostin
I grew up in the ’70s on the Cherokee Strip, right on the Kansas side of the Oklahoma border, and our hometown had a pork processing plant that employed many …
The Ballad of C.W. McCall
Today is the first day of spring, and boy, is the Honk home office happy about it. In honor of the season of rebirth, renewal and fresh starts, here is …
Hooray for Flowers!
A surprising range of musicians across a broad spectrum of styles and genres share one quirky trait: Being born on March 15. In honor of the many jams produced by …
Embrace the Ides of March
When I was a kid growing up on the Cherokee Strip in the 1970s, the air was filled with country music, played and sung by a cast of colorful characters …
That’s How I Got to Memphis
Perhaps no musician in the history of pop music is more well-known for constant metamorphosis than the late, great David Bowie, who would have celebrated his 75th birthday today. Over …
David Bowie: Diamond (Jubilee) Dog
Well, here we are at the end of another exhausting year of disease, death, social upheaval, creeping fascism, across-the-board uncertainty and sundry shades of dread. As seems to have become …
Reelin’ in the Years
This article is dedicated to the lonesome misfits of Generation X. Names of people and some places have been changed for the usual reasons. In 1983 I was an obnoxious …
This Is Where We Walked
The cowbell has been with us for something like 5,000 years now, from humble beginnings in Africa, where early herdsmen hung small bells made from pottery around the necks of …
All’s Well That Cowbells