Author: Dan Seeger

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week, I did my duty on the film side of the site, reviewing a new French thriller, which largely served as a reminder that same curve of quality applies across all facets of film. There are just as many drab, by-the-numbers movies available for the art houses as there are in the multiplexes. I also wrote about the latest Lykke Li album for a feature on the best music of the year so far. If pressed, I’d probably still designate the latest PJ Harvey record as the best of the year, but I’ve already written about that one for … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: The Velvet Underground, “I Heard Her Call My Name” (live)

Dan Seeger

I have an instinctive aversion to band reunions, a trait that has manifested in all sorts of snippy little comments in this space. I have no good reason to feel this way, although I suspect it comes from essentially being part of the second generation to grow up with rock ‘n’ roll and therefore associated most bands from the distant past as relics who did little more than play the burgeoning casino circuit, often with a line-up of session musicians recruited to fill in for deceased or disinterested band members. I remember reading a Rolling Stone cover story about George … Continue reading One for Friday: The Velvet Underground, “I Heard Her Call My Name” (live)

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Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula

Dan Seeger

Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, 1967). This comic drama about the evolution of a marriage, with particular focus on the sharp degradation it experiences, is playful with its chronology in a way that must have been completely novel at the time of the film’s release. Now, it’s a more familiar cinematic approach, which doesn’t make Two for the Road terribly ineffective, though it does undercut some of the sillier moments that were presumably inserted to make the film easier to grasp a hold of for perplexed audiences. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney are both terrific as they play the … Continue reading Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 11

Dan Seeger

11. Guadalcanal Diary, Flip Flop For a long while, it seemed like Guadalcanal Diary’s fourth and, as it turned out, final album, Flip Flop, wasn’t going to get played on 90FM at all. I doubt the station was especially high on any of the record label’s priority lists, given the fairly small city we broadcast from and the modest 3610 watts we pumped through our transmitter (when we expanded to 11,500 watts a couple of years later, the uptick in interest was noticeable). There were some small but significant labels that didn’t even bother sending us records and a couple … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 11

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Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Only a couple of things from me this week. First, I reviewed a new documentary about El Bulli, the famed Spanish restaurant that revolutionized gourmet food, essentially expanding the parameters of how it could be prepared and the level of creativity that could show up on each plate. Every time someone on Top Chef makes a “foam” or drags liquid nitrogen through the kitchen, there’s a dotted line leading back to El Bulli. I’m especially grateful that I reviewed Frederick Wiseman’s Boxing Gym last year because that gave me a vital vocabulary to use in discussing the structure of this … Continue reading Spectrum Check

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One for Friday: Reckless Sleepers, “If We Never Meet Again”

Dan Seeger

It was about artists not songwriters. Certainly there were those bands that we gravitated to because of a very strong affinity to the songwriting craft they regularly displayed, and within those bands there were sometimes individuals–Andy Partridge in XTC, Paul Westerberg in the Replacements–who were usually elevated above their fellow members as uniquely gifted at matching words and music. But, by and large, we didn’t expect the songwriting talents of those individuals to get shopped around. Their songs were on their records, and that was that. Of the individuals who regularly snuck onto college playlists back in the late eighties … Continue reading One for Friday: Reckless Sleepers, “If We Never Meet Again”