One for Friday: Huxton Creepers, “Rack My Brains”

I don’t remember how I first discovered Huxton Creepers. I hadn’t heard of the Australian band before reaching the college radio station in the fall of 1988, and, as I recall, they weren’t an especially hyped outfit on the left side of the dial either. Their records came and went without anyone paying them much attention. One of their album covers may have been pinned to the studio wall, which was wallpapered with album flats at that time. Maybe I just found their record because my standing default was to go the H section when I didn’t know what to … Continue reading One for Friday: Huxton Creepers, “Rack My Brains”

Allen, Cuaron, Jarmusch, Kazan, Kaufman

Stranger Than Paradise (Jim Jarmusch, 1984). A New Yorker’s Hungarian cousin comes to visit, staying with him for an extended period, despite his initial protests. He grows to like her, eventually recruiting his buddy to join him in paying her a visit when she later moves to Cleveland. That trip evolves and the three of them wind up traveling to Florida together. And that’s about it. Jarmusch’s signature aesthetic was forged here as he often seems to be trying to see how little action he can put into any given sequence. Sometimes that can be wearying, but here it works … Continue reading Allen, Cuaron, Jarmusch, Kazan, Kaufman

One for Friday: The Baroques, “Musical Tribute to the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon”

I’ve lived in three different U.S. states and I’ve felt attached to each of them in different ways. While I currently call North Carolina home, my first thirty one years on this planet (to they day, in fact) were spent in Wisconsin, and part of the proof that America’s Dairyland still has a unique hold on me is that nothing piques my curiosity about a band like finding out that’s the place they’re from. This is true of current artists, but it’s even more pronounced when it’s a band from the past, a band I feel I should have heard … Continue reading One for Friday: The Baroques, “Musical Tribute to the Oscar Meyer Weiner Wagon”