The Guardian (08.01.2013)

Blog jam: Burning Ambulance
This week's blog promises 'excellent writing' on jazz, metal and other unlikely musical bedfellows

Who are you and what's your blog called?

Phil Freeman; my blog is called Burning Ambulance.

Where are you based?

Elizabeth, New Jersey, US, but our contributors are dispersed across the globe.

Describe your blog in a sentence

Burning Ambulance is a site devoted to arts and culture (mostly music), offering in-depth discussion of work that doesn't receive enough attention in conventional, ad-driven outlets.

How long has your blog been going?

Since January 2010.

What do you write about?

Jazz, metal, Japanese and Korean pop, modern classical music, visual art, and whatever else captures our contributors' interest.

Why should people visit your blog?

Burning Ambulance offers unique perspectives on jazz, metal and all sorts of other music and art, including: lengthy album reviews; live videos of artists at work; interviews with musicians, writers and visual artists; streaming of song premieres; and much more. You're virtually guaranteed to see or hear something you wouldn't spot on most other music sites, even those that cover similar territory. The quality of our writing is excellent; we aim to inform the new listener without dumbing down our thoughts and annoying those who think they already know everything there is to know (notably jazz and metal fans, who can be obsessive collectors of arcane knowledge and love nothing more than to snootily fact-check). We don't choose music on the basis that is underground or underappreciated: we write about what we like, in the hope that more people will share our enjoyment.

What's your top song right now?

Hearts Content, by the New York jazz group Mostly Other People Do the Killing, which we premiered in November (the album from which it comes, Slippery Rock, is released in January).


What's your favourite music blog aside from your own?


The Free Jazz Collective – a small group of writers who are as devoted to jazz, yet covering it in greater depth than I can manage. It's a must-read for jazz fans, and maybe even for those who aren't yet convinced of free jazz's virtues.


* link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/jan/08/blog-jam-burning-ambulance

Burning Ambulance

Burning Ambulance is a unique online journal of arts and culture. We cover jazz, metal, and music that doesn't fit into any category...and literature, painting, movies and more. We premiere songs, videos, and whole albums that you won't hear anywhere else, and interview artists, asking them questions no one else would.

Since launching in January 2010, Burning Ambulance has published close to 700 features, interviews, and reviews. Our average album review is between 500 and 1000 words, and our interviews run in the thousands of words, investigating artists' work and creative philosophies in depth. Our only criterion for coverage is: Do we love the work?

Now, we've launched a podcast. Every two weeks, we'll interview a musician whose work speaks to the Burning Ambulance readership, whether they make avant-garde jazz, modern composition, death metal, or some previously unimagined combination of sounds.

Supporting Burning Ambulance on Patreon will allow us to continue this project, and BA as a whole. You'll be paying for our web hosting, and allowing us to start paying our contributors and potentially expand into additional realms. In exchange, you'll get a bi-weekly email newsletter to tell you what we're up to, and every once in a while, we'll send an exclusive article, interview, track stream or video your way.

* link: https://www.patreon.com/burningambulance