Author: Dan Seeger

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One for Friday: Luna, “Cindy Tastes of Barbecue”

Dan Seeger

I was never all that adept at following my favorite music performers as they moved from band to band. This was in part because I became a music a fan at the time when there were still really only three steps in a music career: 1. be part of a band, 2. have a solo career and 3. realize you’re too old to be doing that crazy rock ‘n’ roll thing any more. And that unofficial though seemingly mandatory retirement age was actually pretty young. When rock musicians persisted into their forties or, egad, fifties, they were still viewed somewhat … Continue reading One for Friday: Luna, “Cindy Tastes of Barbecue”

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Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Twenty-Eight

Dan Seeger

#28 — Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972) As always, I come to Ingmar Bergman as a wary traveler, an interloper into a cinematic world of abstract artistry that I’m not quite confident I’ll ever fully grasp. The legendary Swedish director, as much as anyone who ever stood on a movie set and told the cameraman where to point his machinery, comes at his films with a devotion to mood, deeply developed emotional truth and finding the profundity in that which is withheld. There are mysteries between the lines of his visual poetry and that is where the meaning lies. … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Twenty-Eight

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Brooks, Hansen-Løve, Noyce, Polanski, Teshigahara

Dan Seeger

The Quiet American (Phillip Noyce, 2002). Occasionally there will be a movie that adheres to a classic narrative structure that is also stolid, humorless and painfully dull that a small but vocal bundle of critics will tout as a dwindling example of cinematic material created for adults. I get that full-time critics were spending the end of 2002 gritting their teeth and covering their eyes while watching supposed comedies and franchise-killing sequels, but they still needed to grade on a helluva curve to find nice things to say about this dire adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. Michael Caine received … Continue reading Brooks, Hansen-Løve, Noyce, Polanski, Teshigahara

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 28 and 27

Dan Seeger

28. U2, All That You Can’t Leave Behind There were other artists from my day still lingering around the college charts ten years later–both R.E.M. and Nick Cave have already had their places in this countdown and I remember full well when the first PJ Harvey album arrived in the station’s rotation–but among those acts that still had one stylish boot planted on the left end of the dial, there was no one bigger than U2. When I arrived at 90FM in the fall of 1988, we were revving up to give away tickets to the local premiere of the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 28 and 27

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

I wasn’t too busy for Spectrum Culture this week, and, atypically, all my writing had to do with music. The one longer piece I wrote was a review of the new Patti Smith album. It felt quite glum about giving the record a middling assessment, but it did sadly strike me as one of the weakest original efforts since she reemerged with the wondrous Gone Again back in 1996. I also contributed to our regular List Inconsequential feature, selecting the Pipettes for my “One Album Wonder,” in part because I’ll take any opportunity I’m given to revisit the song “Pull … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Hoodoo Gurus, “1000 Miles Away”

Dan Seeger

In last week’s One for Friday, I expended quite a few words writing about a friend from my college radio days when I served as an advisor to the students who were running the station. In writing about the way I associate certain songs with certain people, I made an offhand mention of how thoroughly and pervasively that was the case back when I myself was a student, working away at our little broadcast outlet in the heart of central Wisconsin. In the comments, one of my old cohorts challenged me to name some of those songs that were locked … Continue reading One for Friday: Hoodoo Gurus, “1000 Miles Away”

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The walls were crumbling, the wheels were coming off

Dan Seeger

Great pains have been taken in recent weeks to preserve the mystery and secrets of Prometheus, the film that represents director Ridley Scott’s return to the franchise which he unwittingly launched over thirty years ago with 1979’s Alien, before the notion that film concepts could go on forever and ever through endless sequels and reboots. A big screen secret agent with a habit of introducing himself last name first was about the only example of such a process of constant recycling that has now became the norm. It was widely known that Prometheus was more of a prequel, all the … Continue reading The walls were crumbling, the wheels were coming off