Author: Dan Seeger

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

In part due to a little mistake I made the prior week, I had two different film reviews go up at Spectrum Culture this past week. First was a film I should have reviewed earlier, but release schedules apparently baffle me at times. It was a French drama starring Audrey Tautou which proved to be not especially good. Tautou has been fairly choosy since her breakthrough in Amélie, at least by the standards of the European film industries which tend to push stars to churn out movie and movie. That’s a sound choice on her part, but it can make … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Julian Cope, “Five O’Clock World”

Dan Seeger

Even back in the late eighties, we knew Julian Cope was one of the relentlessly weird ones. And I’m not even sure he’d done all that much to earn that reputation by that point. Certainly, some amount of trepidation could be stirred up with his music, first with the post-punk band The Teardrop Explodes and then his solo career, which still felt relatively new at that point. The music was slick pop, but delivered in a way that was angular, aggressive and practically oozing serpentine showmanship. He had the veneer of a dangerous man who happened to have a way … Continue reading One for Friday: Julian Cope, “Five O’Clock World”

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “The Bounce”

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 Olympics were a doo-wop group from Los Angeles that began life under a moniker that relied on the name of their lead singer. Using the name Walter Ward and the Challengers, they released a single called “I Can Tell.” After it didn’t do much on the charts, the band tried a name change, releasing “Western Movies” on the Demon Records label in … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “The Bounce”

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Clooney, Goldwyn, Kiarostami, Taylor, Vaughn

Dan Seeger

The Help (Tate Taylor, 2011). I think a strong, important movie can (and arguably should) be made about the continued racial-based social inequities imposed in the American South–really all over the country, but those below the Mason-Dixon line had a special skill for it–in the early nineteen-sixties as the power of the Civil Rights movement was beginning the much needed push back against the monied classes that wanted to maintain some diluted but still despicable variation on the slavery system abolished about a century earlier. The Help, for all its noble intentions, simply isn’t that movie. Even putting aside the … Continue reading Clooney, Goldwyn, Kiarostami, Taylor, Vaughn

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College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, An Introduction

Dan Seeger

As I mentioned the other day, I had the good fortune to experience a second spin with college radio around a decade after my undergraduate glory years. While I was operating at a very different capacity in relation to the day-to-day operations of the radio station, one of the things I was most grateful for was the opportunity to simply hear excellent new music once again. Despite my best efforts, I’d grown detached from the left of the dial sort of sounds that I favored, having few outlets to hear the latest material where I was living and lacking the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 50 Albums of 2001, An Introduction

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

So I was kind of a screw-up when it came to my contributions to Spectrum Culture this week. I had two different screeners sitting by my DVD player, clear instructions as to which one to watch and review, even complete knowledge in my own skull about the cinematic release schedules of the films embedded on those shiny discs which should have led me to be able to make the right conclusion about how I should devote my time. For some reason, though, I watched the wrong film, wrote up my Dire assessment of it and sent off the piece. I … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Superchunk, “Florida’s on Fire”

Dan Seeger

Typically this space is devoted to songs that embedded themselves into my music fan psyche when I was working at the college radio station during my time as an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. However, I had another tour of duty with student-run radio, serving as the advisor and General Manager for several years at WPRK-FM at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. When I started the job, it was a major transition in many respects, not the least of which was the relocation from America’s Dairyland to the Sunshine State. The first time we … Continue reading One for Friday: Superchunk, “Florida’s on Fire”