Author: Dan Seeger

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Spectrum Culture was back in full wing this week, which meant that my words were all over the place as well. I was especially busy on the movie review front. First I weighed in on a highly problematic drama built around grief and guilt and contrived tension. We’re in that weird stasis zone in between the end of year Oscar fodder (much of which I can’t get screeners of because they’re being highly protective of pirating, even though they send them out as freely as Bed Bath and Beyond coupons to major critics and guild members) and the launch of … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: The Ocean Blue, “Between Something and Nothing”

Dan Seeger

Back when I was playing their debut album off of the new releases shelf, I wonder if I knew that the band the Ocean Blue was from Hershey, Pennsylvania. As I’ve mentioned before in my best aggrieved tone of walked-to-school-in-three-feet-of-snow-uphill-both-ways of self-satisfied lamentation, we didn’t have ready access to Wikipedia pages and other online resources for the bands we played. There were all sorts of routes we did have for accumulating information, from magazine articles to the finer print of an album’s liner notes, but enough of the bands we played were obscure enough that missing (or not taking notice … Continue reading One for Friday: The Ocean Blue, “Between Something and Nothing”

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Antin, Duplass and Duplass, Fellini, La Cava, Ray

Dan Seeger

Cyrus (Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass, 2010). After establishing themselves as slightly cheekier members of the mumblecore movement with the fun, cleverly self-referential Baghead, the Duplass brothers made their first venture into a film with actors carrying impressive resumes with them with the genially bleak relationship comedy Cyrus. John C. Reilly plays a despondent guy who begins to emerge from his post-divorce funk when he stumbles into a relationship with a beautiful woman played by Marisa Tomei. Matters are complicated, however, by her dependent son played by Jonah Hill, in one of his first real attempts at breaking the typecasting … Continue reading Antin, Duplass and Duplass, Fellini, La Cava, Ray

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Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Me Tender”

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. Percy Sledge had as strong of a start as any new recording artist could hope for. He was working in an Alabama hospital while touring with a music group on the weekends in the mid-nineteen-sixties when a friend introduced him to DJ-turned-producer Quin Ivy, who helped get him signed to a recording contract. The very first product of that, issued on Atlantic Records … Continue reading Top 40 Smash Taps: “Love Me Tender”

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College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 20 and 19

Dan Seeger

20. “All I Wanted” by In Tua Nua I have only the vaguest recollections of this song being played at my college radio station in the fall of 1988, and believe me when I maintain that an awful lot of my recreational time that fall was spent with a fellow who would have been especially partial to a band led by a pretty Irish singer. The song is certainly lodged deep in my brain, though, so it was probably getting some spins from us back then. Even at the time, In Tua Nua was probably best known for their tangential … Continue reading College Countdown: First Billboard Top 20 Modern Rock Tracks, Fall 1988, 20 and 19

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

After a customary end-of-the-year rest, the Spectrum Culture site returned with a spiffy new redesign this week. It was fairly low-content for the first week back, so my contributions were limited to pitching in on a couple of lists. First, I wrote on the latest Black Keys albums for our collection of the “honorable mentions” when it came to the best albums of last year. Besides that, the site has an annual tradition–in keeping with the features built around assessing older albums and films with fresh eyes–of kicking off the new year by looking back to the best pop culture … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Royal Crescent Mob, “5 More Minutes”

Dan Seeger

College rock in the nineteen-eighties was full of bands that provided a sonic echo of the jangly R.E.M. sound and the nineties was dominated by groups emulating the sludgy assault that was forged by Mudhoney, perfected by Nirvana and turned into a slicked up commodity by Pearl Jam. Those styles were so dominant that it’s easy to forget that there were other bands that were inspiring adherents, including a few fairly unlikely ones. Legend has it that a tour through the Midwest undertaken by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the mid-eighties is what led to the formation of the … Continue reading One for Friday: Royal Crescent Mob, “5 More Minutes”