Category: Music

MusicLeave a comment

A Week of Fridays: Violent Femmes, “Fool in the Full Moon”

Dan Seeger

This coming weekend, I will take to the airwaves of WWSP-90FM, my college radio alma mater, as part of their annual reunion weekends. It will be my first time presiding over a radio program in nine years and my first time on 90FM in over fifteen years. I commemoration, I’m devoting this week to slightly displaced “One for Friday” posts, touching on each of my five years as a student broadcaster. To borrow a line from Robyn Hitchcock, “I didn’t write these songs; they wrote me.”   My inaugural year at WWSP-90FM was a whirlwind. I was atypically forthright in inserting myself into the station … Continue reading A Week of Fridays: Violent Femmes, “Fool in the Full Moon”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 163 – 161

Dan Seeger

163. The House of Love, “Christine” Released in 1988, “Christine” was the third single by the London-based band the House of Love, but it was the one that made all the difference. Their first two releases, “Shine On” and “Real Animal,” sold softly, and there was a clear sense that their label, Creation Records, was close to slotting them in the interesting failure category. The label was reportedly weighing whether or not to fund a third single when the band delivered an attention-getting live performance at London’s the Town & Country Club. Wanting to capitalize on that buzz, Creation sent the House of … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 163 – 161

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: World Party, “Put the Message in the Box”

Dan Seeger

World Party had a Top 40 hit while I was in high school, pushing into the hallowed portion of the U.S. charts with “Ship of Fools,” their first single. Presumably, then, that song and the album it derives from, Private Revolution, represent the high water mark for the band Karl Wallinger started after he walked away from the Waterboys. My memory shapes the history a little differently, though. I remain highly susceptible to mentally enhancing the value of those albums that arrived sometimes during my first couple of years at my college radio station. That’s partially due to nostalgia, but it … Continue reading One for Friday: World Party, “Put the Message in the Box”

Music, TelevisionLeave a comment

The Art of the Sell: Freedom Rock

Dan Seeger

These posts celebrate the movie trailers, movie posters, commercials, print ads, and other promotional material that stand as their own works of art.  When I was in college, I wasn’t exact smooth with the ladies. I was fervently devoted to the things which stirred my soul, and none of them — college rock, comic books, movies, comedy, baseball, politics, spiteful modern novels — exactly tagged me as a “catch.” While I considered myself lucky to find a cadre of pals who supported my dorkish ways, that mutual support occasionally compounded the problem. That preamble brings us to the sad tale of … Continue reading The Art of the Sell: Freedom Rock

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 166 – 164

Dan Seeger

166. The Nails, “Things You Left Behind” As any rock band must, the Nails talked about the artistic growth they were going through when they released their second full-length album, Dangerous Dreams, in 1986. They’d had a mini-sensation two years earlier, with the single “88 Lines About 44 Women,” but the very nature of the track stirred a mist of novelty up around the group’s music. While hanging tight to the gentle beat poetry vibe that made their name (lead singer and chief songwriter Marc Campbell was quick to namecheck the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Anne Waldman when asked … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 166 – 164

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Voice of the Beehive, “I Say Nothing”

Dan Seeger

There are a bevy of albums from my first semester or so in college radio that I think of as wondrous gifts. Those aren’t necessarily the best albums from that time, the ones that I will quickly hold up as exemplars of the college rock sounds in its waning years, before the tsunami of grunge buffeted it away. Instead, they’re the albums that I hold dear, but I’m not confident I would have found my way to if they hadn’t sat in the new music rotation during those early days when I was eager to learn. I had my preconception … Continue reading One for Friday: Voice of the Beehive, “I Say Nothing”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 169 – 167

Dan Seeger

169. M+M, “Black Stations/White Stations” By 1984, Martha and the Muffins were a very different band than the one that had a international hit single five years earlier, with “Echo Beach.” The lack of similar chart success with subsequent releases caused the group to get dropped by Virgin Records, and they’d shed several band members over the years, including saxophonist Tony Haas, who chose to conduct his exit interview through a series of missives printed in the letters column of Now, the Toronto alternative weekly newspaper. The tumult was so thorough that remaining members Mark Gane and Martha Johnson took the … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 169 – 167

Music1 Comment

One for Friday: Concrete Blonde, “Ghost of a Texas Ladies’ Man”

Dan Seeger

I’ve recently been taking advantage of the technological marvels afforded to me by the endlessly interconnected digital world to listen to my alma mater college radio station with some regularity. Though I have an obvious bias coloring my perception, I still maintain that this particular oasis on the left end of the dial is programmed better, smarter, and more effectively than just about any other outlet with a transmitter tower at their disposal. While so many other noncommercial stations indulge in extensive block programming, allowing the on air staff to craft playlists that speak exclusively to individual, hyper-focused music preferences, the place … Continue reading One for Friday: Concrete Blonde, “Ghost of a Texas Ladies’ Man”

MusicLeave a comment

College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 172 – 170

Dan Seeger

172. The Police, “Message in a Bottle” By Sting’s reckoning, “Message in a Bottle” was a breakthrough for him as a songwriter. He estimated that he’d been noodling with the guitar riff, mentally and otherwise, for about a year before he started to pull it together with some stray ideas for lyrics. That approach of working on music and lyrics as entirely disconnected properties that eventually converged was very much his preferred process at the time. Placing words against the music began with the title. “Message in a Bottle” was written down in his notebook, causing Sting to free associate on the term, … Continue reading College Countdown: CMJ Top 250 Songs, 1979 – 1989, 172 – 170

MusicLeave a comment

One for Friday: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, “Bag of Hammers”

Dan Seeger

I’ve got a strange, new concert-going tradition, inadvertent and entirely out of my hands. For the past couple of years, I’ve had multiple instances where I’ve seen shows that fall into the category of long-awaited. In all of those instances, I stood in the crowd with a single song in mind. I wasn’t some agonized hipster, pining for a minor obscurity unlikely to be played. In every instance, it was a single, or at least a track that was pushed as such. In no instance was it some deal-breaking tragedy if it didn’t get played, but I stood ready for it nonetheless. … Continue reading One for Friday: Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, “Bag of Hammers”