Author: Dan Seeger

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Na na na na na na sorrow, everything’s gonna be all right

Dan Seeger

I live in Asheville, North Carolina. For the fourth straight year, Asheville has shared or won outright the title of Beer City USA for four years running, which makes an awful lot of sense considering there are a multitude of first–rate craft breweries within a fifteen minute drive of our front door. Besides the homegrown brewers, within the past few months it’s been announced that New Belgium, Sierra Nevada and Oskar Blues have all announced that they’ll be opening new facilities in the area to handle their respective East coast operations. With all that activity, and the accompanying growing suspicion … Continue reading Na na na na na na sorrow, everything’s gonna be all right

Music52 Comments

Top 40 Smash Taps: “Limbo Rock”

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. I think it’s fair to type that the Champs are known for one song: “Tequila.” That song was originally issued as the B-side to “Train to Nowhere,” a single released on Challenge Records, the label started up in part by Gene Autry. The song was recorded in late December of 1957 and released less than a month later. Once DJs flipped the record … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Limbo Rock”

Film17 Comments

Greatish Performances #10

Dan Seeger

#10 — Marisa Tomei as Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny (Jonathan Lynn, 1992) Marisa Tomei’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar win for My Cousin Vinny was so surprising and contrary to the typically stuffy Academy voting trends that a fairly mean-spirited myth built up around it. As per Academy custom, the previous year’s Best Supporting Actor winner was invited to present the award, which meant 74-year-old Jack Palance took the stage, looking far less hale than he did a year earlier when he famously treated the audience to a few one-armed push-ups. He fumbled with the names of individual … Continue reading Greatish Performances #10

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I started with a piece on the music review side. I’ve previous written on Vivian Girls and La Sera, so it only seemed logical to me that I should continue weighing in on all the groups bobbing across that shared orbit. That meant writing on the second Best Coast album, not really knowing when I claimed it that the band was on the receiving end of enormous antipathy. That at least gave me an angle with which to start the review. I also had my regular contribution on the film side, writing about the new … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Joe Jackson, “Tomorrow’s World”

Dan Seeger

When I think back on the artists and albums that were decisively, definitively ours during my youthful days in college radio, I almost always conjure up memories of the bands and performers that started on the left end of the dial and probably never managed to creep up to the higher frequencies: Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, the Smithereens. They certainly represented a central part of my musical experience, but there was a whole other batch of artists that got regular play at 90FM who were more like reclamation projects. These were the performers who had experience some commercial success, unlikely … Continue reading One for Friday: Joe Jackson, “Tomorrow’s World”