Author: Dan Seeger

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Beers I Have Known: Skull Splitter

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. Some beers I know well. Some beers, on the other hand, I’ve seen the twisted metal and cracked pavement they inflict in the delectable car crash of their consumption. My friend Scott was ahead of his time, an erudite connoisseur of the vast spectrum of high-quality beer well before the craft brewing boom. At our urging, he once provided a list of his ten favorite beers of all time, and I remember puzzling … Continue reading Beers I Have Known: Skull Splitter

Music9 Comments

College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 18 and 17

Dan Seeger

18. “The Sweetest Thing” by U2 Having the natural contrarian spirit of a teenager, I was somewhat dismissive of U2’s The Joshua Tree at first. For one thing, my sensibility was well into the process of being shaped by the cranky irony of David Letterman’s late night endeavor, so the thudding sincerity of Bono and the boys instinctively rankled me. There was a point when even I had to concede that the record was exceptional, though. The thing that finally broke my defiant stance was “The Sweetest Thing.” The track was originally released as one of the B-sides on “Where … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 18 and 17

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Like everyone else, my mind is elsewhere today, so I’ll keep this brief. I’m sure you understand. I reviewed two things for Spectrum Culture this week. On the film side, I reviewed a documentary about the Lovings, the perfectly named couple whose court case against the state of Virginia ended anti-miscegenation laws across the land. On the music side, I reviewed the new album from a band called Night Moves, which I primarily chose because I was amused by the peripheral Bob Seger connection. Lest I confuse anyone, the band’s music sounds absolutely nothing like anything ever cooked up by … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Yo, “I Meant to Tell You”

Dan Seeger

I have no idea if I ever played Yo at the college radio station. Their album Once in a Blue Room was released in 1986, a couple years before I made it to our perch at the left end of the dial. The “Y” section of the station’s C-stacks, home of the more obscure material, were tricky to get to, basically requiring a junior contortion act from the DJ to fit into the roughly foot-wide space between the record shelves and the concrete bunker that the turntables sat upon. The problem was even more dramatic with the “M” section a … Continue reading One for Friday: Yo, “I Meant to Tell You”

Music41 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Stone Cold”

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. The band Rainbow started when guitarist Ritchie Blackmore decided he’d had enough of playing in Deep Purple. Dissatisfied with the funkier direction his bandmates were taking around the time of the 1974 album Stormbringer, Blackmore decided to explore the possibility of a solo outing. He recruited a couple of members of the blues rock band Elf, including Ronnie James Dio, along with other … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Stone Cold”

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Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Four

Dan Seeger

#4 — A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971) Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange is widely considered a classic. I can’t think of another film in the same exalted status that is as brilliantly, exuberantly, comically savage. In adapted Anthony Burgess’s 1962 novella of the same name, Kubrick tore free the ferocious id of humanity and laid it bare, ultimately questioning whether the true problem was the roiling internal rage and impulsive hedonism of people or the cloying attempts of society to contain those instincts. Untamed passion may lead to random acts of violence and terror against innocent people, but isn’t … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Four

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College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 20 and 19

Dan Seeger

20. “Rain in the Summertime” by the Alarm I tend to heap scorn on the copycat programming choices made by “commercial alternative” radio during my time served there in the mid-nineties, when the surest route to chart success was delivering a passable Eddie Vedder impression. (Why, I did it just the other day!) However, it was hardly a new phenomenon then, nor was it confined to those further up the dial who could seek out ad dollars without restriction. Throughout much of the decade prior, the labels that catered to college radio were always happy to open their checkbooks to … Continue reading College Countdown: KROQ-FM’s Top 40 Songs of 1987, 20 and 19