For brief stretch of time, my adult beverage of choice was a velvet crush. I didn’t pick up on this from friends or family or even some intrepid bartender who could somehow spot that I’d be a sucker for the combination of sugary, “fruit”-flavored water and hard liquor, but because Soul Coughing sang about it in a song. The opening lyrics to the song “Mr. Bitterness” place the setting as a bar called The Bitter Seed and describes a woman who we will come to know as alluring and aloof. She drinks a velvet crush. Lead singer M. Doughty helpfully … Continue reading One for Friday: Soul Coughing, “Mr. Bitterness”

Eleventh Dream Day is the band that taught me about the fiscal realities of being a top college radio act. The Chicago group had a surprise hit on the CMJ charts with their second full-length and major label debut, Beet, in 1989. As it recall, it came out of nowhere, and wound up making it all the way to #2 on the CMJ album charts. To us, it seemed like a big deal. This was obviously a huge new band, rubbing shoulders with the iconic likes of the Cure, the B-52’s and Public Image Ltd. Surely they were now huge, … Continue reading One for Friday: Eleventh Dream Day, “Makin’ Like a Rug”