David Stagg

About
My Book

The Burning Ones
By David Stagg

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace.

Latest Movie Stubs

Posts

Music

The Top 14 Riffs Pantera Ever Wrote

Apr 30, 2026
Pure metal riffage, thrash-rips, neck-wrecking headbanging.
Design

Hyperspecialisation

Jan 26, 2026
As the business of “product” became more normalised, the jobs…
Technology

Post-AI AI

Jan 12, 2026
I had been thinking about this recently: There is a lot of…
Movies

The Top 23 Songs of 2025

Dec 31, 2025
When I sat down to put this together, my first…
TV

The Top 12 TV Shows of 2025

Dec 30, 2025
Movies are my first love, but I still love culture.…
Movies

The Top 26 Movies Of 2025

Dec 28, 2025
Note: I have yet to see: Marty Supreme, 狂野时代 (Resurrection),…
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Long Form

Watain

The Devil’s Missionary

“That’s where we are. That’s where the other side is. Once people cross that bridge and they get scared, they want to run back. They’re upset because they find things on the other side of the river they didn’t think would be there.”

In Full ➟
iwrestledabearonce

Run Fast, Play Heavy

“The day I stopped believing in God was the day that God didn’t answer my prayers that the frickin’ Looney Tunes squad would come out of my TV with Michael Jordan and be my friends. I did meet Charles Barkley once. Wait. Twice.”

In Full ➟
The Used

Bert McCracken Against The World

“Honestly, human beings don’t need to do anything. Every human being on this planet is completely different. Nothing anyone else says is going to work exactly like they think it works.”

In Full ➟
Korn

The Second Coming of Head

“The Word of God is living and active and it pushes us to meet the real God, and you’ve got to know the real God and what he’s like – now, in this day and age. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever.”

In Full ➟
More Long Form

A Quote

I can imagine him, with his puritan heritage … in that city foreign and paradoxical, with its atmosphere at once fatal and languorous, at once feminine and steel-hard—this grim humorless yokel out of a granite heritage where even the houses, let alone clothing and conduct, are built in the image of a jealous and sadistic Jehovah, put suddenly down in a place whose denizens had created their All-Powerful and His supporting hierarchy-chorus of beautiful saints and handsome angels in the image of their houses and personal ornament and coluptuous lives.

General Compson on New Orleans
Absalom! Absalom!
By William Faulkner

A Video

In 2004, George Harrison was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. To celebrate, his son Dhani performed “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” written by The Beatles, alongside Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne… and Prince.

You can just see Prince, stage left, staring down an otherwise a formulaic, straightforward, undeserving cover – until it’s his turn at-bat, when he won’t let that happen. When you see the smoke start to rise off the fretboard. When he falls backward into the arms of a security guard and stares straight back at Tom effing Petty, bleeding swagger. When he finishes the solo by taking off his guitar without touching his hat, throwing it in the air, and walking off stage.

In a room full of Hall of Famers, Prince was the king.

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