iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

To be clear, I was (am?) very much on the Bears hype train musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/the-bears-...

In one year as head coach, Johnson transformed Chicago from a 5-12 laughingstock into another giddy gridiron fireworks display. The Bears were division champs, an 11-win team, postseason noisemakers. Perhaps more importantly, they were desperados—comeback kids capable of digging themselves out of seemingly any hole with pizzazz. Chicago put together one of the most exciting late season runs in recent memory. Even their losses were popcorn television, and their wins? Rarely has a team for which I had no historic rooting interest provided so many breathtaking full-body-tingle moments.

So when Johnson told The Athletic in August that his team was aiming to break the NFL scoring record this season, my reaction was not to scoff. It was to delightedly cackle while imagining how the 2026 Bears might surpass the mark of 37.9 points per game set by the 2013 Denver Broncos. In Week 1, they bested observers’ loftiest expectations, dropping a whopping 59 points on the Panthers (while also conceding 37, but never mind that, shhh, booo). Williams was a virtuoso by land and by air, and even without production from fantasy darlings Colston Loveland and Luther Burden, the whole offense looked electric. This was going to be fun.

The fun ground swiftly to a halt Sunday.

Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

When you leave band practice to catch the end of the game and end up stuck on the sidewalk outside the bar, watching through the window

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Kiwi Jr. are such big hockey fans that they often schedule tour dates to coincide with Habs away games. Full pod here: musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/episode-1-...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The first Kiwi Jr. album is called FOOTBALL MONEY, but Jeremy originally wanted to call it DALLAS COWBOYS

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

At least Justin Herbert has Madison Beer to go home to musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/the-giants...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Hard to imagine what it would be like for the Browns to have a Baker-level QB but I made this Photoshop

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

The Giants flipped the script. Put some respect on the Cardinals' name. Trevor Lawrence AND Caleb Williams are The Prince That Was Promised. NFL Week 1 recap at Music Nerd Football Blog, including waiver wire picks for your fantasy teams: musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/the-giants...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A theme song for every AFC team heading into 2026: musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/a-theme-so...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The only NFL season preview to compare the Eagles' interpersonal dynamic to the PUP song about wanting to murder your bandmates musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com/p/a-theme-so...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

MUSIC NERD FOOTBALL BLOG launches soon. The NFL through the eyes of a music critic, bestselling author, and football obsessive. Plus podcasts with musicians discussing their NFL fandom. First half of my season preview drops tomorrow. Sign up here: musicnerdfootballblog.substack.com

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Perplexed and intrigued when I read this as “Future will thank you for this”

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Amazing to see an arena headlining band in such a small venue

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Thrilled to be on the new episode of @indiebasketball.bsky.social's PlaylistMakers with Wild Pink and Ovven. Watch the episode and check out our playlist of songs with a name in the title: linktr.ee/indie.basket...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Had no choice but to bring up Tom Herman's pee color chart in my blurb about the new Coco & Clair Clair stereogum.com/2506876/the-...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I like it right here, but I cannot stay

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

I don’t know the source of this meme but it makes me happy

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

I have two panels at Columbus Book Festival at the main library this weekend, 1 p.m. Saturday on debut authors and 10:30 a.m. Sunday on music books. More importantly, Deez Cookies created a cookie based on my book SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS! They’ll be selling it in 92-98 row of Topiary Park all weekend!!!

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

My 11-year-old asked to hear “Smooth Criminal” after her friend sang it at karaoke. When my 5-year-old saw this cover art he said it looked like “Enola Holmes’ mom.”

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

The White Stripes released White Blood Cells 25 years ago today. I wrote this for the 20th anniversary and was pretty happy with how it turned out: stereogum.com/2152673/the-...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Streets are saying the straight line was a lie

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Twenty-five years ago today stereogum.com/2150573/the-...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

If you ever have the chance to see Magic Tuber Stringband play in the woods I recommend it

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

It was amazing to be back in Athens for the OU Music Industry Summit last week. I was privileged to conduct keynote interviews with @nabilayers.bsky.social and @ilovelucius.bsky.social and participate in a panel on the state of music journalism with @anniezaleski.bsky.social and Marcus J. Moore.

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Unprecedented levels of Slaughter Beach, Dog per cubic foot

Slaughter Beach, Dog’s Jake Ewald performs at Republic Of Athens Records to kick off the Ohio University Music Industry Summit

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Question for my fellow millennials (and maybe some Gen X-ers)... How many of you were introduced to the USMNT for World Cup 1994 by this issue of Sports Illustrated For Kids? Trying to figure out of that was a common progression or if it was just me.

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Maybe Ari isn't putting pop stardom on pause after all stereogum.com/2495269/new-...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion in stores now read.macmillan.com/lp/such-grea...

a tweet that reads "Ladies and gentlemen… this is the most powerful supercomputer ever built. It is capable of sorting through every 2000s indie band and determining which ones were 'underrated' and 'actually had some bangers'"

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Looking forward to this conversation with @anniezaleski.bsky.social and Marcus J. Moore April 15 at the Ohio University Music Industry Summit www.ohio.edu/music-indust...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I'm told it's "un relato vibrante"

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

Thrilled to announce that my book 'SUCH GREAT HEIGHTS: The Complete Cultural History of the Indie Rock Explosion' has been translated into Spanish under the new title 'LA MÚSICA INDIE.' It's available now via Ediciones Península: www.planetadelibros.com/libro-la-mus...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Today I learned from @michaelweinreb.com's newsletter that the guy who invented NCAA tournament bracket contests was named Bob Stinson. But not THAT Bob Stinson. throwbacks.substack.com/p/how-we-kil...

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

From the Stereogum Discord last week

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Chris DeVille @chrisdeville.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Really vibing with @carlzoilus.bsky.social's take on "Streets Of Minneapolis" carlwilson.substack.com/p/keepin-war...

I thought “Streets of Minneapolis” was a better gesture than song when I first heard it but the live version changed my mind. A couple of awkward bits, sure. But I love the way the lines, “Here in our home, they killed and roamed/ In the winter of ‘26” render this month’s events as if they were already history, as if they were a song from Nebraska recounting a yellowed newsprint legend—at once pulling the song into Springsteen’s own corpus, lending today’s protests the nobility of archival chronicle, and suggesting this too shall pass. I also adore the internal rhymes in, “It's our blood and bones/ And these whistles and phones/ Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”—working the evildoers’ names in like that is a real chef’s kiss-off. And the crowd here proves it works as a singalong.

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