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The Department of Tangents Podcast

Years ago, playing a sort of improv game with friends in which we all picked super powers based on our personalities, I dubbed myself “Tangent Lad.” I was not a very strong superhero, and I could not defeat a super villain on my own, but I could distract them with Monty Python quotes and football trivia. I have many times since apologized to an interview subject in my capacity as a journalist by saying, “I am either very good or very bad at tangents, depending on how you feel about tangents.”

I had a rough time coming up with the concept and naming this blog/podcast. I knew I wanted to create a place where I could address things I’m passionate about – comedy, music, and horror. Finding a name that communicated all three of those things proved a bit impossible. I bugged my friends, and they all tried to help. To no avail. Then I thought, maybe I’m approaching this from the wrong angle. Maybe my lack of focus should be the focus.

As a journalist, I have written for The Boston Globe since 2000, starting out writing CD reviews and then writing a regular column on comedy for seven and a half years. I still contribute there, and to Kirkus Reviews, and other publications. I’m also a musician, and released my debut full-length album, Blue Skies and Broken Arrows, in March of 2015. And I’ve been publishing short horror fiction for a couple of years.

I like to climb into things I love and see how they operate. That’s what the Department of Tangents is for. The main thing here is love. To talk about the things that make I’ve loved forever, and some new things that might stand the test and be around, at least for me, for decades to come. I’ve had to be critical in my writing at times, and it might not all be nonstop roses here, but in the end, what I really want to talk about is the good stuff. That’s why I will regularly write about things I think are “Perfect,” even if someone can demonstrate empirically that they are flawed. Still perfect to me.

Also, fish.

I hope you, dear anonymous surfer person, will come to expect only the highest-quality, free-range, grass-fed tangents. And I hope some of you love the same things I do and find it useful. Or at least a welcome distraction until the others get here.

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  2. S2EP4 - Musician Rob Kovacs

S2EP4 - Musician Rob Kovacs

Jun 29, 2021

At first glance, Rob Kovacs seems to have wildly divergent interests in music. His latest album, Let Go, is lush and rhythmic piano pop. It’s organic and melancholy, and tells a very human story about snakebit would-be lovers who can’t come together and yet can’t quite find their way out of each other’s orbit. It’s built for sepia-tinged sunlight and dry scattered leaves. Look again, and you see his alter-ego, 88Bit, who orchestrates the mechanical soundtracks of throwback video games for piano. The music from Let Go seems as far as you can get from the three-channel ditties on your average NES system. But keep listening, and you’ll hear how they blend together, how they merge in Kovac’s particular style. We discussed both sides of Kovac in this conversation on a particularly nice day in his hometown of Cleveland – you can even hear the birds chirping in the background through his open window. 

You can find his work at the places he just mentioned, but in case you missed them, his website is www.obkovcsmusic.com, and you can find him on Twitter and Instagram at @robkovacsmusic. You can find 88Bit at www.88bitmusic.com and on Twitter and Instagram at @88bitmusic. Follow him there for tour and new release info.