Author Archives: Brian LaRue

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About Brian LaRue

Writer, Editor, Guitarist, and So On

New single and music video from Safe Houses: “I’ll Be Bad to You”

My band, Safe Houses, just dropped a new single and music video, “I’ll Be Bad to You,” and it’s currently available on all the usual-suspect platforms: video on YouTube and Vimeo; audio on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube Music, and the … Continue reading

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Introducing University of Space Recording Company

After years of threatening to do so, I quietly launched a record label in early 2023. I say “record label” colloquially. More accurately, it’s a cassette and digital label. It’s called the University of Space Recording Company, and it’s the … Continue reading

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Heavy Breathing with the Scam Call Center

Everyone knows the best thing to do with an incoming phone call from a number you don’t recognize, at a time when you’re not expecting a call, is to ignore it. Everyone knows it’s probably going to be a scam … Continue reading

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The Best Lesson I Ever Learned About Soloing, I Learned When I Was 16

So, one thing about me as a musician is that I’m a guitarist who is deeply ambivalent about guitar solos in a rock or pop context. I’ll take a solo, sure, if it makes sense in the context of the … Continue reading

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Quick and Painless Peanut Sauce

All right, here’s another one for all the broke artists out there! It’s the beginning of a new year, and following the holidays, there’s a strong chance the wad of cash under your bed is looking thinner than it normally … Continue reading

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Bad Advice Musicians Hear, Part 7: You Can Do It All on the Internet

It’s a Friday night down at your local rock club, or maybe a Wednesday. Who even knows anymore? You’ve played at this place six times in the last nine months, and the crowd is still made up of seven of … Continue reading

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On Staying Out of the Comments in 2023

I’m taking a few seconds right now to consider how my social media habits have changed over this past year. Of course they’ve changed, because the discourse on pretty much all of the major social platforms has been changing. You … Continue reading

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A Quick Layman’s Explainer of Specifically How Elon Musk Is Actively Tanking Twitter’s Business Model Right Now

Author’s note, added Apr. 2025: I’ve noticed this post has been getting a fair amount of traffic recently, and I want to point out that this post is from Nov. 2022, which means that at the moment I’m writing this … Continue reading

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Now This Band Is Called Safe Houses

If you’ve been following along on this blog even a little bit, or if you know me offline, you probably know I’ve been the lead singer and primary songwriter of a band called Shelter Dogs since 2013. I kept that … Continue reading

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