Author: Dan Seeger

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They sing “I’m in love, what’s that song? I’m in love with that song.”

Dan Seeger

I’ve spent most of this week linking over to Spectrum Culture in order to call attention to my various contributions to the year-end features. As it happens, there’s one more left, which spurred me to come up with a ranking of the top songs of the year, something I routinely indulged in back in my college radio days, but which I haven’t done in quite some time. I wrote on “Swim” by Surfer Blood, my selection for best song of the year. These are the others that I had in my top ten that didn’t make it on to the … Continue reading They sing “I’m in love, what’s that song? I’m in love with that song.”

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One for Friday: Trip Shakespeare, “Snow Days”

Dan Seeger

My favorite time of year at my college radio station was winter break. Though we were student-run and largely student-staffed, we were also proudly on the air every day of the year, including Christmas. We labored on with our skeleton crew, many of taking an on-air shift or two every day. It was dead-quiet like no other time of the year. During the summers, there were classes happening in our building, and the campus was infiltrated by a bevy of conferences, camps and other events that caused child prodigies and health nuts to mingle awkwardly with our lingering student population. … Continue reading One for Friday: Trip Shakespeare, “Snow Days”

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College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 66 and 65

Dan Seeger

66. Syd Straw, Surprise Syd Straw originally intended to go into the family business. When she moved to New York City at the age of nineteen she planned to become an actor like her father Jack Straw, whose most significant credit was a supporting role in the 1957 film The Pajama Game. Before long, Straw decided that she might be better off pursuing a singing career, a decision that quickly yielded dividends when she earned a prominent place in the ever-shifting line-up of Anton Fier’s band The Golden Palominos. That in turn helped her make plenty of impressive connections so … Continue reading College Countdown: 90FM’s Top 90 of 1989, 66 and 65

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It’s not quite the way to say your goodbyes, it’s not quite the way to behave

Dan Seeger

I think it’s embarrassing that Hollywood is looking to children’s toys and games for inspiration, but I now think I’d be okay if French cinema followed suit. (Due credit: I discovered this thanks to a Tweet that justified my Twitter account all by its lonesome.) Continue reading It’s not quite the way to say your goodbyes, it’s not quite the way to behave

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One for Friday: Pere Ubu, “Oh Catherine”

Dan Seeger

Pere Ubu was one of those bands I couldn’t quite wrap my head around when I was at the college radio station. This was partially because the station’s music library, my giant encyclopedia of sonic wonders pressed into individual vinyl volumes, wasn’t especially well stocked in efforts by the Cleveland band, especially lacking in those releases that would be considered seminal like The Modern Dance or Dub Housing. But, truth is, I may have been so lacking in background knowledge about the group that they could have been there and I wouldn’t have known to give them a listen. Also, … Continue reading One for Friday: Pere Ubu, “Oh Catherine”