About Me

Hi! My name is Michael Lawrence. I'm the one responsible for this desecration of the Internet.

I graduated from Wichita State University in December 2006 and I now proudly hold a bachelor of arts degree in print journalism and a bachelor of science degree in geology. I am looking for work at the moment, but I'm confident I'll be gainfully employed in the near future.

I was born in Renton, Washington in 1982, but I grew up in Wichita, Kansas. To prove that some things in life go full circle, I have returned to my roots. I currently live in Edmonds, Washington.

I started this Web site in 2003, because I had nothing better to do but I ended up loving it!! I will continue working on adding new reviews and rewriting some of the older ones. I doubt I will ever do it with the same gusto I had when I first began, but I have a feeling this Web site will remain on the Internet until I am dead. According to my calculations, that should be somewhere around 2062. My spirit for reviewing albums usually comes in waves (it depends on how busy I am in my "real" life). I have an unattainable goal to eventually review 10,000 albums.

My favorite period in rock is easily punk and new wave between 1977 and 1985. Although I certainly love most of the stuff that came before it. After the '80s, I tend to not care for the music. (Grunge isn't my cup of tea unless we're talking about the Pixies.) My least favorite style of music is country-western and I have serious reservations about rap and hip-hop. I appreciate a good heavy metal song, but I rarely listen to the stuff except when I'm reviewing it. In case you can't tell, my favorite rock musicians are (in order, more or less) David Bowie, Kate Bush, The Beatles, Talking Heads, The Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, Roxy Music and The Kinks. I also have a major soft spot for pop musicians such as ABBA and Elton John, but I grow ever-frustrated with similar minded popsters who are always trying to pass off bland melodies. I also have a love for classical music that I'm sure would really blossom if I were ever to review the stuff ................ well, maybe when I'm 50. (However, I am seriously thinking about reviewing Philip Glass sometime in the horizon.) That brings me to progressive rock ... I love that stuff dearly, too. Genesis' Selling England By the Pound has been among my favorites since I first heard it in 2002. I don't have an impressive set of prog-rock reviews (they're quite well covered on other WRC sites), but I do aim to have good coverage soon.

Finally, I apologize for the grammatical errors and general sloppiness of my reviews. I get plenty of e-mails from people commenting that I didn't study in my journalism classes (but they're wrong because I got something like a 3.7 GPA in these classes). I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I do wish I was a better writer. Maybe I'll get better with time.

Also, please read about how stupid I am.

If you want to hear my original music, click here.