I am compulsive about putting a new post in this space every day, but my frivolous preoccupations strike me as inappropriate in the moment. Instead, I’ll share this five-year-old graphic from The New York Times that tragically hasn’t lost its … Continue reading Programming Note
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I’ve been watching Saturday … Continue reading Laughing Matters — Saturday Night Live, “Apple Picking Ad”
194. Big Audio Dynamite, This is Big Audio Dynamite (1985) “We put on a great show, unless you turn up hoping to see the old Clash,” Mick Jones explained as his band Big Audio Dynamite embarked on a tour to … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #194 to #192
I’ve written abut Roger Angell before, inadequately. Dumbstruck with administration when considering the legendary writer’s prose, how could my words be anything other than inadequate? I stood before a monolith with a handful of scuffed dominos. On the occasion of … Continue reading Outside Reading — Once More Around the Park edition
I guess it’s official: I’m destined to immediately fall — and fall hard — for new tracks that merge a nineteen-nineties guitar fuzziness with early twenty-first century indie-rock yearning. Waxahatchee is undoubtedly the standard bearer for the sound, but Try … Continue reading This Week’s Model — Try the Pie, “Last of You”
Sometimes comedy illuminates hard truths with a pointed urgency that other means can’t quite achieve. Sometimes comedy is just funny. This series of posts is mostly about the former instances, but the latter is valuable, too. I’ve been thinking a … Continue reading Laughing Matters — George Carlin, “A Place for My Stuff”
The Hard Way (Vincent Sherman, 1943). This drama about a young woman named Katie (Joan Leslie) making her way in the ruthless world of showbiz has some real grit to it, distinguishing a storyline that otherwise hits familiar beats. It … Continue reading Then Playing — The Hard Way; The Lady Gambles; Leave No Trace
Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers make a nifty racket together. Hailing from the Isle of Wight, the longtime friends decided to form the band Wet Leg just a couple years ago and quickly got down to the business of crafting … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Wet Leg
This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves. As I’ve been lucky to do several times over the past years, I spent my Sunday night … Continue reading Radio Days — Then and Now: May 15, 2022
197. The Bongos, Beat Hotel (1985) RCA Records thought this new band they signed held some promise of crossing over. There were already some little inklings that the Bongos had the makings of mass appeal. Two of the singles from … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #197 to #195
Coffee for Two 