Author: Dan Seeger

Music55 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Your One and Only Love”

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. In 1960, the year that Jackie Wilson’s “Your One and Only Love” peaked at #40, the phenom singer had six songs that made the Billboard Top 40. That tally included “Alone at Last,” which went to #8, and “Night,” which made it all the way to #4, his career best. Wilson was known as “Mr. Excitement,” but the music he was using to … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Your One and Only Love”

Books, ComicsLeave a comment

Great Moments in Literature

Dan Seeger

“Most nights Claire disappeared into the crafts room, or had never come out of it in the morning. Technically no crafts emerged from this part of the house. We named it once with the hope that someone, sometime–a future child of ours, perhaps–would go in there and be productive, make something pretty or useful or interesting. Such were our speculations for the children we might have. They would fashion objects that glowed or spoke, and we would sit in wonder as we held their tremendous work in our hands. Our children would solve some fundamental boredom we could not escape, … Continue reading Great Moments in Literature

Film, MusicLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

My week at Spectrum Culture started with me writing about one of those films that I know backwards and forwards. Usually, when I write about anything for Spectrum, I try to give it a fresh viewing (or listen), but that absolutely wasn’t required in this instance. There is one problem, though. I really should have asked to get pushed back a week so the review was closer to Opening Day, although Major League Baseball is sure working hard to make Opening Day (true Opening Day, not exhibition-games-that-count Opening Day) feel goofy and anticlimactic. Continuing on the movie beat, I wrote … Continue reading Spectrum Check

Music1 Comment

One for Friday: Sam Phillips, “Baby I Can’t Please You”

Dan Seeger

I think all of us toiling together in college radio had our favorite obscure performers, those who didn’t burn up any charts, including those our our own station, but whose every new release filled us with excitement. Often, these weren’t necessarily even performers who we felt had created masterpieces previously, but who instead always seemed to have the chance to create a absolutely fantastic album lurking within them. My whole time as a student DJ at 90FM, I was dead certain that Sam Phillips had an absolutely fantastic album lurking within her. The fact that it technically came out after … Continue reading One for Friday: Sam Phillips, “Baby I Can’t Please You”

FilmLeave a comment

Eastwood, Polanski, Rosenberg, Siodmak, Wyatt

Dan Seeger

Hereafter (Clint Eastwood, 2010). Clint Eastwood will often dismiss anyone trying to read too much subtext of grand personal artistic statement in his films. They’re just pictures to the steely-eyed director. Certainly this ponderous rumination of mortality holds no added passion or weight that might be expected from a guy entering into his eighties and, therefore, maybe a little interested in considering what might be out there beyond this mortal coil. Instead Eastwood plods through a notably facile script from Peter Morgan bringing together multiple story threads in ways that would strain credulity to breaking if they weren’t so completely … Continue reading Eastwood, Polanski, Rosenberg, Siodmak, Wyatt

Comics6 Comments

Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Daredevil #31

Dan Seeger

By now we’ve established that the mighty mavens of Marvel Comics were only bettered in their talent for titanic tales by their positively prodigious promotional prowess. This was trues as ever in the swingin’ sixties when almost every single soaring saga was touted as the living end. For example, 1967’s Daredevil #31 was described as follows: “Possibly the most sensational of all DD’s adventures! Imagine the Man Without Fear minus his super-senses–forced to battle his most deadly foes while he’s actually sightless! It’s Daredevil’s most fateful moment–and when you see the ending–HOOO BOY!” Does the supposed stunner by Stan (The … Continue reading Mighty Marvel Checklist HyperboleCheck: Daredevil #31

Music27 Comments

College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 50 and 49

Dan Seeger

50. Creeper Lagoon, Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday Creeper Lagoon was one of those bands that was a complete mystery to me when I became reacquainted with college radio in 2001. All these years later, they’re still a mystery. Maybe the kids were playing Take Back the Universe and Give Me Yesterday and I just don’t remember. The band name and the album title stir absolutely no memories for me, although I’ll acknowledge that some of the more obscure offerings from those first few months do tend to blur together for me. The band was a project … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, 50 and 49