Author: Dan Seeger

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One for Friday: John Wesley Harding, “Like a Prayer”

Dan Seeger

Let us momentarily sing the praises of indie performers targeting college radio with quasi-ironic covers of big hit pop song. Back in 1989, a copy of Madonna’s Like a Prayer, on vinyl, sat in the top drawer of the filing cabinet in the office I occupied as the Program Director of WWSP-FM. I’m not even sure why Warner Bros. even bothered to send it our way, except that the label was big enough that it probably wasn’t worth their time to discriminate about shipments of promotional copies to radio stations. Everything went everywhere. While my station was a little more … Continue reading One for Friday: John Wesley Harding, “Like a Prayer”

Film10 Comments

Greatish Performances #20

Dan Seeger

#20 — Linda Cardellini as Kelli in Return (Liza Johnson, 2011) In modern cinematic considerations of war, there is a broad agreement that the emotional aftermath when a soldier reached the homeland is just a brutal and devastating as anything that might have happened when they were deployed. Even a film as supposedly jingoistic and fully enamored with battlefield conquest as the ultimate in heroism as American Sniper needs to acknowledge that the military man whose prowess with a rifle is a such that he get deadly superlatives affixed to his name is going to win up staring blankly at a … Continue reading Greatish Performances #20

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Three

Dan Seeger

#33 — The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) Though The Big Sleep would never be considered experimental enough to suggest that it’s deliberating courting an antinarrative approach, it does oddly wind up making its own accidental argument about the invalidity of sanctifying cogent storytelling. Stories about the convoluted plot of the film flummoxing practically everyone involved are legendary. Based on a Raymond Chandler novel of the same name, the film had three formidable writers credited on the screenplay: William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman. Additionally, with Howard Hawks in the director’s chair, The Big Sleep boasted one of the … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Three

Comics13 Comments

My Misspent Youth: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jim Steranko

Dan Seeger

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. By the time I started reading Marvel Comics offering in the early nineteen-eighties, there was a clear house style to the art. Looking at the issues from that era now, the figures, no matter who was drawing them or which artists they claimed as an influence, feel somewhere in the sweet spot between the clean clarity of John Romita, Sr. and the potent muscularity of John Buscema. The foundational works from … Continue reading My Misspent Youth: Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. by Jim Steranko

Music2 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Will Find a Way”

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. Jackie DeShannon had three Top 40 hits. Two of them made it all the way into the vaunted Top 10 and have basically became standards. Her first, “What the World Needs Now,” was written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach and first recorded by DeShannon for the 1965 album This is Jackie DeShannon. The next hit, released about four years later, was the … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Will Find a Way”

Music23 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 41-39

Dan Seeger

41. The Pooh Sticks, Optimistic Fool The Pooh Sticks were one of those bands that received lavish praise from certain quarters, but rarely made much more than marginal headway with anyone other than music critics. That’s probably chiefly attributable to the annoying little detail that the band were little more than an elaborate put-on, the brainchild of Fierce Recordings co-founder Steve Gregory. The music indulges in tried and true rock posturing, tugging the the tropes through a filter of Pavement-style self-satisfied arch mockery. I suppose that’s great for some (there are an awful lot of Pavement devotees, after all), but i … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1995, 41-39

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From the Archive: Rooney

Dan Seeger

This is another music review I wrote for The Independent Journal. I think it appeared in the same issue in which I trashed a Liz Phair record.  As the garage rock pile-on continues unabated, it’s good to be reminded that buffing muscular guitar riffs into something glossy and bright isn’t such a bad idea every now and again. The latest evidence is the self-titled debut from Rooney, fronted by Robert Carmine, younger brother of Phantom Planet drummer (and Max Fischer portrayer) Jason Schwartzman. This is the sort of album that starts with a lone guitar, ends with a lush, achy … Continue reading From the Archive: Rooney

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One for Friday: Elvis Costello, “45”

Dan Seeger

Elvis Costello wrote the song “45” on the day he could officially and honestly claim that number as his age. After debuting it in a 1999 appearance on The Tonight Show, he recorded it and released it as a track on his 2002 album When I Was Cruel. That album arrived towards the end of my first year back in college radio, now serving as an advisor rather than a student programmer. I was just into my early thirties at the time, and that age — 45 — still seemed so distant, almost unthinkably far into the future. Not any more, … Continue reading One for Friday: Elvis Costello, “45”

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Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Dan Seeger

#34 — His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, 1940) According to Hollywood lore, the simple and brilliant notion that changed His Girl Friday from a straight adaptation of the play The Front Page, which had been filmed within the preceding decade, was hit upon largely by accident. Howard Hawks had his female secretary read the lines of male character Hildy Johnson while auditioning actors to play the other lead, Walter Burns. Something about the back-and-forth made Hawks realize that the film could be bolstered by carrying that gender switch into the production proper, which also opened up the possibility of incorporating a fractious … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 40s — Number Thirty-Four

Music3 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Angel”

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. There are at least three waves to Rod Stewart’s solo career: the early years, when he was still an amazing belter with spotty but acceptable taste in material; the middle years, when he was desperately singing any schlocky song he (or his people) thought might become a hit; and the later years, when he lazily crooned standards, knowing that a cushy, lucrative spot … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Angel”