Author: Dan Seeger

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Playing Catch-Up: Suicide Squad, Don’t Breathe, Rogue One

Dan Seeger

Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016). As we stand perilously on the cusp of Wonder Woman finally arriving on the big screen (which has, predictably, included the wailing of tiresome males who find excuses to decry everything that doesn’t cleave to the credo “Boyz R Da Greatesssssst!”), it’s perhaps worth remembering the DC has gotten very, very bad at making movies of their superhero properties. Suicide Squad — which is one of the most obscure character groupings that the entertainment goliath-wannabe has thus far repurposed for real live actors — is astonishing in its parade of hideous spectacle. It’s as if director David Ayer looked at … Continue reading Playing Catch-Up: Suicide Squad, Don’t Breathe, Rogue One

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On Memorial Day

Dan Seeger

I struggle over what to post on holidays. Except for a few instances in which I’ve settled into a comfortable, easy pattern — a silly animated gif on Thanksgiving, a Calvin and Hobbes comic on Christmas Eve — I find I come to the most significant individual days on the U.S. calendar with a measure of uncertainty. I have no wistful memories to offer up, no strident calls to value the meaning of the day within me. Usually, I punt, tapping out some bit of simple nonsense in a minimum number of words, confident no one is much likely to … Continue reading On Memorial Day

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 40 – 38

Dan Seeger

40. The English Beat, “Save It for Later” Since this is a chart for U.S. college radio that we’re tracking through, we are obligated to refer to the band featuring both Dave Wakeling and Ranking Roger among the ranks by the vulgar and pedantic moniker the English Beat. In their native U.K., there was no need for the geographic qualifier, of course. The original name for the group preserved truth in advertising since the ska-singed beat delivered didn’t necessarily call to mind the British Isles. The Beat were already a force on the U.K. charts by the time they released their third … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 40 – 38

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From the Archive: Five for Friday, Hot Fun in the Summertime edition

Dan Seeger

I dragged over an old “Five for Friday” just a couple weeks ago, but I knew this timely topic was somewhere amidst the two hundred editions of my former recurring exercise in participatory listing. Offering it as a rerun today was simple too tempting. As was the case last time, I created a YouTube playlist with (almost) all of the songs that I and my far-more-inspired commenters listed. It’s perfect accompaniment for your holiday weekend grilling. Five Great Summer Songs 1. First Class, “Beach Baby.” It’s from 1974 and boy oh boy is it crammed with cheesy, from the piercing, poppy horns … Continue reading From the Archive: Five for Friday, Hot Fun in the Summertime edition

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One for Friday: The Mr. T Experience, “So Long, Sucker”

Dan Seeger

Like a lot of my cohorts in college radio, I saw music as serious stuff. I adamantly clung to the notion that the songs we played on our end of the dial were revolutionary, transformative, and deeply important as compared to the frivolous nonsense all the other stations were playing. Even when one of our favored artists indulged in comparative silliness about, say, mass transit smooching, we knew deep down that it really represented a deep expression of existential agony. Bubble gum fun was for the helpless sheep, lulled into complacency by the repetitiveness of Top 40 radio and MTV. … Continue reading One for Friday: The Mr. T Experience, “So Long, Sucker”

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Laughing Matters: Eddie Izzard, “Cake or Death?”

Dan Seeger

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.. As I recall it, the first time I ever encountered Eddie Izzard’s name was in a piece at the online magazine Salon, when online magazines were still the height of novelty. The comedy performances touted in the article were still devilishly hard to come by, so I simply filed the name away, deeply intrigued by the excited celebration of a comic mind that approached … Continue reading Laughing Matters: Eddie Izzard, “Cake or Death?”

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Now Playing — Alien: Covenant

Dan Seeger

In space, it is said, no one can hear you scream. While I watched Alien: Covenant, I started to wonder if it was possible to hear aggressive eye-rolling into the middle of a booming movie theater. The latest attempt to wring a few more dollars out of enduring nostalgia for the 1979 sci-fi/horror film — or, more likely, the inferior 1986 sci-fi/action sequel — returns Ridley Scott to the director’s chair, continuing the eradication of goodwill that he began with Prometheus. That prequel effort to the franchise Scott inadvertently launched a lifetime ago trafficked in pretentious, exploratory mumbo jumbo and disconnected … Continue reading Now Playing — Alien: Covenant

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Beers I Have Known: Burial Beer Co. Tin Cup Camp Stout

Dan Seeger

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. Although it wasn’t necessarily all that great for either my waistline or my wallet, I greatly enjoyed my time as a beer drinker in Asheville, North Carolina. During the eight years or so that I lived there, the craft beer scene expanded from a boomlet to a full-on craze. I naturally had my favorites, and it was difficult to bid them farewell when I moved back to the frigid, friendly North. While I … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Burial Beer Co. Tin Cup Camp Stout

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 43 – 41

Dan Seeger

43. R.E.M., “Fall on Me” Sometimes when focusing on singles released in the nineteen-eighties, it is illuminating to look at their music videos. By the time R.E.M. released their fourth album, Lifes Rich Pageant, in 1986, MTV was approaching the peak of its powers as the tastemaker for U.S. music charts. Although R.E.M. had a somewhat strained relationship with the promotional art of music videos, lead singer Michael Stipe took the lead on creating a clip for the album’s lead single, “Fall on Me.” Its cryptic imagery was in line with the band’s image as inscrutable icons of college rock, but … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 43 – 41