Author: Dan Seeger

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “We’re Free”

Dan Seeger

These posts are about the songs that can accurately claim to crossed the key line of chart success, becoming Top 40 hits on Billboard, but just barely. Every song featured in this series peaked at number 40. Beverly Bremers began her music career early, appearing on television programs and recording her first singles when still a teenager. She experience only the mildest success until she found herself in the middle of a sensation, joining the cast of Hair during its original Broadway run. That led to other stage work, including a featured role in the Tony-nominated musical The Me Nobody … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “We’re Free”

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Tomorrow’s sun with buildings scrape the sky

Dan Seeger

For a sizable portion of his career — at least since Back to the Future first positioned him to be able to take pricey risks in his projects — director Robert Zemeckis has been most enlivened by material that allows him some opportunity to bend the latest cinematic technology to the needs of classic Hollywood narrative. At its best, this has led to films where the exuberance of Zemeckis’s relentless invention gave truth to the overused term movie magic. It also led to an unfortunate stretch of years that found him stuck in the Uncanny Valley. Even at the most dire, the … Continue reading Tomorrow’s sun with buildings scrape the sky

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 5

Dan Seeger

5. Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, Brainbloodvolume As happens from time to time in this crazy endeavor of mine, I find myself downright startled by the high placement of an album on the chart being scaled through. The U.K. band Ned’s Atomic Dustbin had a couple of enormous hits on 90Fm during my time there. The band released their debut album, God Fodder, in 1991, and the singles “Kill Your Television” and “Grey Cell Green” were as constant of a presence on our Central Wisconsin airwaves as station policy would allow. Their follow-up, Are You Normal?, also did well, though I don’t recall … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 5

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One for Friday: Fire Town, “Turn To Me”

Dan Seeger

When I was a teenager, just starting to hone my musical taste into something respectable, I wanted to believe in a local music scene. As I read through my biweekly subscription copies of Rolling Stone with the sort of intense scrutiny others save for the Bible, I became enamored with any write-up about a town that was exploding with an influx of great new bands that were garnering national attention. The mixture of civic pride and being ahead of the curve was potently appealing to me for reasons I still can’t quite identify. Of course, I couldn’t truly take advantage … Continue reading One for Friday: Fire Town, “Turn To Me”

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The boys are worried, the girls are shocked, they pick the sound and let it drop

Dan Seeger

Sicario, the new drug war drama directed by Denis Villeneuve, is delivered with the certainty that it has all sorts of profound things to offer about the dire state of the world. It is serious and intent, a brave face with just the merest hint of a quiver. Unfortunately, despite it’s stalwart intentions and clear self-regard, Sicario is a movie without much to actually say, a problem compounded by an overly stylized approach that makes its relative emptiness become almost unbearable. Written by Taylor Sheridan, the film purports to examine the cross-border drug trade with a barbed focus on the widespread … Continue reading The boys are worried, the girls are shocked, they pick the sound and let it drop

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirteen

Dan Seeger

#13 — The Red Shoes (Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell, 1948) I’m less likely than most who turn themselves over to cinema to become hopelessly enamored of a film strictly on the basis of its visuals. I’m not immune to such affections, and I certainly believe that striking imagery is one of the vital tasks of a great piece of moviemaking. Still, my patience is tested whenever I feel that a film is overemphasizing the scenery with a disregard for the fundamentals of narrative storytelling. The Red Shoes is something of a refutation of my prejudice. To be clear, the story … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirteen

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We have just discovered an important note from space

Dan Seeger

Ridley Scott has been directing feature films for nearly forty years, doing so at a reasonably prolific rate. Included among his films are a pair of science fiction efforts (Alien and Blade Runner) that are widely considered classics and have absolutely influenced the similar genre efforts that followed with a pervasiveness that only Star Wars can rival. He’s received three Best Directing Academy Award nominations and presided over a Best Picture winner. While I think even his most fervent adherents would acknowledge that he’s signed his name to more than a few clunkers, by any fair estimation Scott has had … Continue reading We have just discovered an important note from space

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Beers I Have Known: Green Man ESB

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. As I wind down my time in Beer City, USA, I’m thinking a lot about my standby beers over the eight years I’ve called this wondrous mountain town home. I’ve had plenty of beers that I’ve chased, but I’m referring to the beverages that were my defaults, always available and guaranteed to please with equal consistency. The downtown bar Jack of the Wood was one of our haunts, especially in the early days, … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Green Man ESB

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 6

Dan Seeger

6. Juliana Hatfield, Only Everything I don’t think I was the only person at 90FM who actively cultivated celebrity crushes. At the risk of stating the obvious, boys are sorta gross when it comes to that, categorizing those to whom they’re attracted as objects of various degrees of desire in an effort to make sense of, well, mostly their own loneliness. Among my brethren, at least there was a little different set of criteria that guided our fetishizing appraisal of the singers and musicians that captured a shard or two of our desperate, addled hearts. For those of us who favored women, … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 6