Freedy Johnston

Not being especially tech savvy, I kind of freaked out a few minutes ago when I checked the web for an article I’d written about Freedy Johnston for the old Salt Lake City-based music monthly grid. (Disclosure: about half of the 3hive crew were employed by grid.) Google says opening the defunct magazine’s website might “harm your computer.” Yikes! The article was called “Hoboken Dreaming,” and it profiled Johnston’s 1997 album Never Home. If I remember right, my interview with the NJ pop singer wasn’t half bad. Anyway, the track available here comes from a disc full of covers — in this case, one by Marshall Crenshaw — released in 2008 called My Favorite Waste of Time. It’s full of the kind of pop songs that Johnston’s been offering up for years, tracks by The Eagles, Matthew Sweet Paul McCartney and Tom Petty, among others. And while these songs don’t necessarily have the geographic specificity of some of his own work, he still plays them like he owns them.

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