Have a favorite S&N contributor? Want to learn more about them for educational and/or cyberstalking purposes? Here’s our staff:

Spencer (The Editor): Spencer lives in Washington DC and likes writing about himself in the third person. He’s an unapologetic defender of Coldplay, 90s rock, and Liam Neeson action flicks, but he likes to balance that out with a steady diet of obscure indie rock and art house films. He’s a film history buff with a particular fetish for Alfred Hitchcock, Humphrey Bogart, and Charlie Chaplin movies. Turn-offs include artists and filmmakers who confuse quirkiness with quality, bands who think it’s edgy to use off-kilter capitalization in their names, and um, Kanye.

Required Listening: Ryan Adams / Elliott Smith / Radiohead / Smashing Pumpkins / Miles Davis / Josh Ritter / Glen Hansard / The Roots

Essential Movies: The Godfather Part II / Notorious / Vertigo / The Third Man / Swingers / Rocky IV / Fast Five / Goodfellas / 2001: A Space Odyssey

Favorite Drinks: Rye Old-Fashioned / Shiner Bock / Spanish Reds / ridiculously overpriced coffee pour-overs that claim to have a bright buttery mouthfeel and afternotes of citrus and mahogany

 

Antony: Antony is an academic from San Diego with a taste for music that speaks to his deeply Scottish soul. That might mean anything from British folk to American alt-country to electronic atmospherics. He prefers EPs to LPs and hates anything 80s. Turn-offs include poorly reasoned arguments, Pavement, and the use of the term “hipster” (which, he insists, is a phenomenon that doesn’t actually exist).

Words Of Wisdom: “Music softens walls.”

Required Listening: Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home / Gillian Welch, Time (The Revelator) / Idlewild, The Remote Part / Josh Ritter, The Animal Years / King Creosote & Jon Hopkins, Diamond Mine / The National, Boxer / LCD Soundsystem, Sound Of Silver

Suggested Reads: Seamus Heaney, Opened Ground: Selected Poems / Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle / Montainge’s Essays / George Orwell, Down And Out In Paris And London / Albert Camus, The Fall

TV Addictions: Mad Men / Sherlock / Firefly / Arrested Development

 

Jason: Raised near Amish country, Jason overcame his upbringing to become a functional member of society. Now living in Washington, DC, he’s equally likely to argue with you about Supreme Court jurisprudence or which Van Halen singer had the best run. Turn-offs include bad scotch, libertarian legal theory, and movies where Abraham Lincoln doesn’t kill vampires.

Required Listening: Bob Dylan / Van Halen / Ours / Radiohead / Tool / Metallica / Stevie Ray Vaughan

Essential Movies: Chinatown / The Big Lebowski / The Bridge On The River Kwai / The Godfather I & II / Dead Poets Society / The Matrix (there’s only one)

Suggested Reads: James Joyce’s A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man / David Halberstam’s The Best And The Brightest / Chuck Palahniuk’s Rant / Garry Wills’s Inventing America / Liaquat Ahamed’s Lords Of Finance

Favorite Underappreciated Guitar Solos: Randy Rhoades in “Goodbye To Romance” / John Frusciante in “Wet Sand” / Donald Roeser (Blue Oyster Cult) in “Astronomy (Live)” / Eddie Van Halen in “Feelin’,” “I’m The One,” “5150,” and “Unchained”

 

Jeremy: Jeremy is a native of Cincinnati who teaches his children the important things in life, like the lyrics to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck.” He’s the kind of guy who doesn’t mind smoking a tobacco pipe while waxing philosophical about craft beer, British car shows, or Peyton Manning’s place on the list of greatest all-time QBs. Turn-offs include losing football pools, losing Oscar pools, and losing.

Words Of Wisdom: “I love the way music inside a car makes you feel invisible; if you play the stereo at maximum volume, it’s almost like other people can’t see into your vehicle.  It tints your windows, somehow.”– Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Holy Trinity of Modern Albums: Pearl Jam’s Ten / Jeff Buckley’s Grace / U2’s Achtung Baby

Essential Movies: Casablanca / Once Upon A Time In America / Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels / Pulp Fiction (or pretty much anything from Tarantino)

Suggested Reads: Chuck Klosterman / Stephen King (primarily the Dark Tower series) / Ian McEwan’s Atonement / Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay

 

Mark:  Mark is a lawyer/surfer with an East Coast outspokenness and a West Coast spirit.  Residing in Los Angeles, he is a master of the mixtape and knows the live music scene in southern California better than anyone. Turn-offs include cold weather and Chris Martin lyrics.

Required Listening: The National / Fugazi / Smashing Pumpkins / Weezer / Jason Isbell / Hozier

Best Live Show: Sigur Ros @ Spreckels Theater in San Diego

 

Sumeet: Sumeet has recently moved to our San Francisco office, where he’s the local expert on comic book movies, Bollywood cinema, and all things Fast & Furious. He hosts a weekly game night and may or may not own a Spider-Man lunchbox. While fully capable of accepting the most fantastically absurd premises for movies — they’re turtles, you see, but they’re also ninjas who love pizza! — this will in no way stop him from arguing to the death over minor plot inconsistencies. Turn-offs include meat, Man Of Steel, and speaking at audible volumes.

Essential Movies: Good Will Hunting / The Dark Knight / The Lion King / Life Is Beautiful

Underrated TV You Should Have Watched: Chuck / Psych / Sports Night

Favorite Burrito Spot In The World: Gordo Taqueria, Berkeley, CA