I’ve now written about Frances Ha so many times that I’ve effectively given up on trying to make certain I come up with something new to say when I take another crack at it. I don’t bother to review how … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Two
#45 — Somebody Up There Likes Me (Robert Wise, 1956) No matter how many times the comparison is invoked by those trying to distract from the damage wrought by the sport, boxing isn’t poetry. It is instead angry prose slammed into place by harshly struck typewriter keys. The definitive cinematic statement of this truth is and will forever be Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull, though there are certainly predecessors to that masterpiece that make the same argument with similarly brutish authority, most notably Somebody Up There Likes Me. Based on the autobiography written by middleweight champion Rocky Graziano (with what was … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Five
23. Greg Kihn, Next of Kihn Perhaps the only thing that needs to be known about Next of Kihn, the third album by Baltimore-born Greg Kihn with the band that bore his name, is that it inaugurated the practice of … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 23
As might be able to predict, these first few weeks of the “From the Archive” feature involve methodically tracking through the various sources from which most future installments are likely to be drawn. My two primary collegiate sources duly covered, it’s time to move ahead a few calendar years. When I was living and working in central Florida, I was lucky enough to be in the orbits of some exceedingly interesting people, including an individual who is the most remarkable manifestation of the word “indefatigable” I’ve ever met. Among the many, many endeavors of my friend Dave was founding and … Continue reading From the Archive: Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
Sometimes–often, actually–I miss radio. I don’t solely mean working in radio, though that’s true, too. Twenty-five years ago as I type this, I was in my first year of college, meaning I was in my first year at the college radio station. Around this point in the year, I’d just been elected to serve in my first position on the executive staff, a vital part of my higher ed journey that itself would represent four-and-a-half years of diverse, exhausting, challenging, exciting, gratifying work. From there I went to commercial radio for a time, learning just enough to realize it was … Continue reading One for Friday: Steve Carlisle, “WKRP in Cincinnati”
I’m prepared to admit that I can’t always readily identify what makes a great album great. Sometimes, sure, there’s a clear vision, a great leap forward for an artists, or some wholly evident backstory that adds depth to the melding … Continue reading The New Releases Shelf: Burn Your Fire for No Witness
I think American Hustle is a fine name for David O. Russell’s latest film, but I prefer the title printed across the front page of the script he agreed to direct: American Bullshit. That has less to do with a … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2013 — Number Three
#46 — Beat the Devil (John Huston, 1953) Like most people, I suspect, I have a tendency to think of films of the nineteen-fifties–at least Hollywood films of the nineteen-fifties–as fairly staid and safe, lacking the rush of invention and … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 50s — Number Forty-Six
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. Straight outta Hanover, Pennsylvania, the Pixies Three were a girl group trio comprised of high schoolers Midge Bollinger, Kaye McCool, and Debra Swisher. After being snapped up by Mercury Records on the basis of Philadelphia talent show appearances. The label initially named them the Pixies, based on the faddish haircut of the day, only to discover there was already a New York group … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Birthday Party”
24. Robin Trower, Caravan to Midnight I’m just enough of a classic rock philistine that I tend to think of Procol Harum as the beginning, middle, and end of the success its musicians had, and “A Whiter Shade of Pale” … Continue reading College Countdown, The First CMJ Album Chart, 24
Coffee for Two 