Thirty years ago, in the autumn of 1988, A&M Records released the compilation Stay Awake. Adorned with the description “Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films,” the album was perfectly calibrated to endear to the brash sentimentalists around the … Continue reading One for Friday — The Replacements, “Cruella De Ville”
These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art. The U.S. movie industry has a long history of cruelly casting off figures who were once titans, … Continue reading The Art of the Sell — Dark Tower commercial
This series of posts is dedicated to the many, many six packs, pony kegs and pints that have sauntered into my life at one point or another. This has been a long, rough day of travel. But at least my … Continue reading Beers I Have Known — Foothills Brewing Hoppyum IPA
The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018). The English-language film debut of French director Jacques Audiard rambunctiously tinkers with one of most storied Hollywood genres without ever quite figuring out what sort of neo-Western it wants to be. Sometimes it aims … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up — The Sisters Brothers; Our Brand is Crisis; A Bigger Splash
Damien Chazelle’s First Man is a remarkable technical feat. The filmmaker takes the unofficial once-per-generation challenge to intensify the verisimilitude in the cinematic depiction of space travel and rises to it. The title refers to the historic 1969 touchdown on … Continue reading Now Playing — First Man
836. John Cougar, American Fool (1982) John Cougar was frustrated with the music business grind when he toiled over his fifth album, American Fool. In truth, the singer-songwriter who was born with — and would soon readopt — the last … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 1000, 1979 – 1989 — #836 to #833
It was tricky producing a weekly movie review radio program in Central Wisconsin in the early nineteen-nineties. There were nine screens in our town and a decidedly unaggressive approach to bookings. Especially at the time of the year, we’d watch … Continue reading From the Archive — Night of the Living Dead
Thirty years ago, in the autumn of 1988, That Petrol Emotion released their third album, End of the Millennium Psychosis Blues. The band John O’Neill developed after the breakup of his the Undertones, That Petrol Emotional had some of the spunk of their immediate ancestors with a deliberate attempt to convey something distinct about the Northern Irish lineage of O’Neill and some of his cohorts in the group. That Petrol Emotion’s lead singer was Steve Mack, an American who was discovered by the band in London. The varied perspectives of the members drove a sprightly eclecticism in the band’s music. … Continue reading One for Friday — That Petrol Emotion, “Groove Check”
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. “Greatest hits albums are … Continue reading Laughing Matters — The Kids in the Hall, “Into the Doors”
I read a lot of comic books as a kid. This series of posts is about the comics I read, and, occasionally, the comics that I should have read. In 1986, I was the prime target for bold, edgy comics. … Continue reading From the Archive — Batman: The Dark Knight by Frank Miller
Coffee for Two 