Author: Dan Seeger

Music14 Comments

College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 54 and 53

Dan Seeger

54. Dash Rip Rock, Ace of Clubs For a blazing, guitar-driven outfit from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Dash Rip Rock seems a pretty fitting name. A quick listen to any of the scorchers on their sophomore album Ace of Clubs makes it seem like the band’s name might derive from the set of instructions they give themselves before manning their instruments. That may be part of the point, but the group is more specifically named after the hunky actor who spent some quality time with curvy Elly May Clampett in an episode of TV’s The Beverly Hillbillies. The real secret to … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 54 and 53

Comics2 Comments

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

Comics were added to the mix recently over at Spectrum Culture, which speaks directly to my woefully geeky heart. My first offering on that front is a retroactive examination of the Wolverine miniseries created by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller in the early nineteen-eighties. I well remember reading the limited series when it was first published, reveling in the aching coolness of it. He was in a tight race with bashful Benjamin J. Grimm in my own personal Favorite Character category at the time. By the end of that decade, it’d be hard to think of a character I was … Continue reading Spectrum Check

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Antenna, “23”

Dan Seeger

I suspect there’s a tendency to always see the time when you’re following music most closely–probably those years around high school and college–as a time of particular tumult and transformation. It’s a natural side effect of close scrutiny combined with a passionate connection with the artists. Every shift in a lineup or full-on dissolution of a band is major news, like the borders of a country being redrawn after a war. The whole landscape changes, or at least that’s what it feels like. At around the time I started at the college radio station, both Husker Du and The Smiths … Continue reading One for Friday: Antenna, “23”

Comics, FilmLeave a comment

It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

Dan Seeger

Upon further reflection, it’s not actually that difficult to figure out why Darren Aronofsky chose to follow up Black Swan by presiding over the latest cinematic adventures of Marvel Comics mainstay Wolverine. The similarities between Nina Sayers and Logan are legion. He may be able to recycle whole pages of the Swan script. Continue reading It’s my turn to see what I can see, I hope you’ll understand, this time’s just for me

FilmLeave a comment

Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

Dan Seeger

#48 — Roxanne (Fred Schepisi, 1987) No matter what snap judgments observers may have made about him when he rose to fame in the nineteen-seventies by making balloon animals and wearing arrow-through-the-head apparatuses, Steve Martin has classic, refined tastes. It’s not just in the acquisition of art–a topic in which Martin is extremely well-versed, although New York City audiences apparently have no interest in his insights. For example, when penning his first solo screenplay after serving as one of the contributing writers on most of his prior comedies, Martin looked to a work no less venerable than the 1897 Edmond … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number Forty-Eight

FilmLeave a comment

Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

Dan Seeger

Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962). This beloved film classic only had its notoriety bolstered when Martin Scorsese remade it in 1991. Though my helpless affection for Scorsese is well-documented by now, I must concede that the the original is far superior, largely due to the performance of spectacularly relaxed menace by Robert Mitchum as recently sprung convict Max Cady, who decides to terrorize the prosecutor whose testimony was instrumental to his incarceration. Mitchum is so good developing a fearsome quality out of little more than the way he glares across a room or strolls into a scene that the … Continue reading Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

FilmLeave a comment

Spectrum Check

Dan Seeger

This week at Spectrum Culture, I reviewed a new documentary about Phil Ochs, who I honestly first heard about when Billy Bragg released a song about him. Appropriately enough, Bragg is one of the people offerings his opinions on the late folk singer in the film. I also reviewed a new documentary about the way plastic has become an overwhelming presence, and potentially dangerous presence, in modern society. Continue reading Spectrum Check

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Buffalo Tom, “Taillights Fade”

Dan Seeger

When I was at the college radio station, there were several bands I loved, those that seemed to sing my thoughts with every song. Then there were those bands that I admired. They didn’t necessarily hit me in my gut in the same way, but something about their passion, their intensity, their readily apparent ethic in each and every one of their songs stirred me differently. I didn’t become devoted to them in the same way, but I was always glad–even oddly proud–to play their music on the radio. Buffalo Tom was one of tho It’s hardly an unorthodox choice, … Continue reading One for Friday: Buffalo Tom, “Taillights Fade”