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.

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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

Chelsea Grin

The Red Badge of Alex Koehler

“When this band started I was 16. Now I’m 23. The older lyrics were just written based around bands I idolized at that age, just gory and disgusting. This album was really easy for me because I decided I wanted to write about real life.”

In Full ➟
Beartooth

Sick Inside

“I could really care less about how many people think we’re cool. That’s not why I wrote the songs. I literally wrote them to keep my head on straight and be honest with myself in a lot of ways, because I had never been honest with myself before.”

In Full ➟
Sleeping Giant

How We Are Free

“I remember just crying. I didn’t know why. I just started crying, thinking about being totally given up on. To still have maybe 30, 40, 50 years left, but according to society, you’re done. There’s no value for who you are.”

In Full ➟
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 ➟
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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