9. R.E.M., “Driver 8” According to guitarist Peter Buck, no song better epitomizes the early era of R.E.M. than “Driver 8.” Released, in 1985, as the second single from Fables of the Reconstruction, the band’s third album, “Driver 8” was … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 9
I don’t really have much preface for this week’s excavated movie review, except to note that this was written for my former online home within my first six months of jumping back into the film criticism game. There are times … Continue reading From the Archive — The Family Stone
When I was first committing myself to the happy tasks of music fandom in my teen-aged years, I never quite understood why there wasn’t more excitement over local and area bands. This was well before the internet put practically every … Continue reading One for Friday: E-I-E-I-O, “Hey Cecelie”
Easily the most thrilling aspect of the new film Atomic Blonde is watching the fiery freedom of Charlize Theron. Long an actress of uncommon fearlessness, Theron thrives as Lorraine Broughton, an agent dispatched by Britain’s MI6 to Berlin as the … Continue reading Now Playing: Atomic Blonde
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. I try not to get too caught up in the chase for beers … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Toppling Goliath King Sue
It causes me some amount of pain to acknowledge that an album with a distinctly nineteen-nineties alternative rock sound is a throwback. My aged bones ache a touch more heartily at the mere thought of it. But here we are … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf — Out in the Storm
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 swear I’m not … Continue reading Laughing Matters: The Ben Stiller Show, “Low Budget Tales of Cliched Horror”
10. Midnight Oil, “Beds are Burning” Diesel and Dust, the sixth album from the Australian band Midnight Oil, had in origins in a tour they had undertaken the year before. In 1985, a group called the Warumpi Band released a … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 10
I think I’ve already dug through and shared all the old reviews I have that detail the usually dire outcomes with film adaptations of Stephen King’s work. In order to tie-in with this weekend’s big new movie — which reportedly … Continue reading From the Archive — Flashback Friday: 1978
In this weekly feature, I invoke my days at college radio station quite a bit, especially those from my first year as an undergraduate. I mean it with utter sincerity and not an ounce of hyperbole when I celebrate everything … Continue reading One for Friday: Big Audio Dynamite, “Just Play Music!”
